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barnesonly · 1 month ago

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˗ˏˋ ★ Little Dove ★ ˎˊ˗

winter soldier x empath!reader

summary: Hydra sends you — a broken empath — into the Winter Soldier’s cell to keep him calm. You’re supposed to soften him. Control him. But instead, something starts to unravel. In both of you.

word count: 6301

WARNINGS: 18+ explicit content, MDNI— disclaimer: contains dark themes. read at your own discretion! angst, slowburn, captivity, tortures, hydra, violence, brainwashing, non-consensual experimentation, hurt/comfort, trauma, possible smut in future chapters? we’ll see.

Chapter Two | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

You still sit with him. You don’t break the silence.

You can’t.

Not when it feels like the air is finally holding something fragile between you — something that could crack open if you breathe too loud.

But then… it does crack.

Not from him.

From you.

Your voice comes quiet. Almost too quiet.

“…Can I touch you?”

The words surprise even you. Not because they’re sudden — they’ve been building, trapped behind your ribs for days — but because you said them out loud. Because you let the ache slip through.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

You press on, a little shakier now. “I just—” You swallow hard. “It’s hard to explain. But when I… when I touch people, I can feel more. It’s like something opens. And with you, it’s…” You hesitate, breath catching. “It’s pulling at me. Like it wants to happen. Like it’s already happening and I just — I need it to be real.”

Still no answer. But his breathing has shifted. Slower. Deeper. Not cold. Not distant. Listening.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” you add. “I don’t want to take anything. I just… I need to feel something. I need to know I’m still me. That you’re still you. Even if it’s just for a second.”

A beat.

Two.

You think he’s going to say no. Or worse — nothing at all. But then… his metal hand shifts slightly on the chain. Just enough to give you space. Just enough to say if you want to, you can.

Your breath hitches. You inch forward, slowly — not rushing, not pushing. You lift your hand with care, like you’re holding a thread of glass.

And when your fingertips graze his palm —

The world quiets.

It doesn’t explode. It doesn’t burn.

It settles.

A warmth pulses through you, slow and deep — not from him, not from you, but something that lives between you. Something buried and broken and barely stitched together.

You close your eyes. Just for a moment. Let yourself feel it. Let yourself have it.

His hand stays still in yours. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pull away.

Your fingers rest lightly in his metal palm, and it’s not warm — not like human skin — but it’s solid. Real. The ridges and cool plates beneath your touch make your throat tighten.

You think you might cry.

But you don’t.

You can’t.

Not here.

So instead, you just stay like that — half-curled in front of him, knees aching, bones cold, but your hand held open against his. Like an offering. Like a prayer.

He could crush you. You know that. If he wanted to, he could break every bone in your hand before you had time to gasp.

But he doesn’t. He lets you touch him. Lets you stay.

And slowly — so slowly — the edge of tension in your body starts to ease. Not vanish. But soften. Settle. The way your power settles when you stop trying to contain it — humming low, like a second heartbeat in your spine.

His head tilts. Barely. Like he’s trying to understand you better. Like he’s watching your expression for something you haven’t said yet.

“Why do you want this?” he asks. His voice is quieter now. Not just low — gentle. Unfamiliar in his own mouth, like it hasn’t been used for softness in a long, long time.

You look at him. He’s beautiful in that terrifying way — all sharp lines and bruised silence and eyes that don’t know how to lie. But under it — under all the programming, under all the control — there’s a man. A soul. Hurt, maybe, but still there.

And for some reason… he’s letting you see it.

“I don’t know,” you admit. Your voice wavers. Your fingers tighten just a little in his hand. Not possessive — grounding.

“I think I’m just… tired. Of being nothing. Of pretending this doesn’t affect me.”

A pause. Then, even softer:

“When I’m near you, it’s like I can breathe again. Like something’s pulling at me, asking me to remember who I was before all this. Before them.”

You lower your gaze, suddenly unsure if you’ve said too much. If you’ve broken something sacred by naming it out loud.

But he doesn’t pull away.

Instead — unbelievably — he moves.

His thumb shifts slightly. Just enough to press against your knuckle. Not a squeeze. Not even pressure. Just presence.

Your breath shudders. And when you look up — his eyes are already on you.

Not blank.

Not empty.

Not the soldier they sent to kill.

But something else. Someone.

“You don’t feel like them,” he says quietly.

You blink. “What?”

He shakes his head once. A flicker of something — confusion, maybe. Vulnerability. The echo of a man trying to understand the light you carry into his darkness.

“You don’t feel like Hydra.”

Your lips part — not with a reply, but with the sharp pull of emotion in your chest. He felt that. He knows that. Somewhere deep inside, past all the noise, he knows you’re not like them.

You want to cry again. But instead — you whisper:

“Neither do you.”

A long silence stretches between you.

But this time, it’s not heavy.

It’s full.

And for the first time since you were thrown into this nightmare — you don’t feel alone.

Not completely.

Not while his hand is still in yours.

———

The lights are brighter in this room.

Not warm. Not comforting. Just clinical. Exposing.

You sit in the same chair as before, wrists folded neatly in your lap, trying not to show how badly your hands are shaking.

Agent Kern watches you across the metal table — same pristine uniform, same gloved fingers laced together, same sharp, unreadable stare. But there’s something different in him today. A tension. A stillness too exact to be casual.

He knows something.

You force yourself to keep breathing. One in. One out.

“You were with him for twenty-seven minutes,” Kern says calmly, reading off a clipboard like it’s scripture. “That’s longer than usual.”

You nod once. “He didn’t push me away.”

Kern doesn’t react. Just scribbles something. The scratch of his pen feels louder than it should.

“Did he speak?”

You hesitate. Just a second.

“Yes.”

Kern looks up at you. Not dramatically. Just a flick of his eyes — like a knife glinting in a dark hallway.

“And what did he say?”

Your throat tightens. “He asked why I touched him. I told him I needed it.”

Kern tilts his head. “Needed it?”

“Yes,” you say, a little too fast, “I can feel his emotions clearly this way. Being near him calms the noise. Makes me more stable.”

He watches you for another beat. You can almost hear the wheels turning behind his eyes.

“And what did he say to that?”

You hesitate again. Not for dramatic effect — just because you don’t know how much truth to offer before it becomes dangerous.

“He said I didn’t feel like them.”

Kern’s eyes narrow.

“That’s not an operational phrase.”

“No.”

“That’s not part of his language bank.”

You hold his gaze, heartbeat ticking hard against your ribs.

“I think it means he’s starting to… separate. Between who’s part of this and who isn’t. Between threat and non-threat.”

You expect a reaction — surprise, interest, anything… But Kern just leans back in his chair.

“Interesting,” he says finally. His voice is smooth. Too smooth. “And what do you think you are, exactly? Threat? Or tool?”

You blink. The words hit harder than you expect.

Tool. You’ve heard that one before. From the nurses. From the scientists. From your own mouth, whispering reminders to yourself in the cell when you forgot how to breathe.

Be useful. Be soft. Be what they need.

“I think,” you say quietly, “I’m the only one who sees him as a person.”

Kern’s expression doesn’t change.

But something shifts. His fingers twitch slightly — a restrained movement. A flash of something just below the surface. “You’re getting attached,” he says flatly.

“I’m doing my job.”

“Your job,” he echoes, eyes narrowing, “is to keep him stable. To soothe his aggression. Not to indulge your own need for connection.”

You flinch. Just slightly.

But it’s enough. He sees it.

“You were selected because you’re malleable,” Kern continues, voice colder now. “Not because he likes you. Not because you matter to him.”

You lower your gaze. The shame flares hot in your chest, but beneath it �� quieter — there’s anger. A slow, steady ember.

You don’t answer.

He stands. “Session in two days. We’ll skip a day, let you reset.” he says. “We’ll be monitoring every heartbeat.”

You nod without looking up.

He leaves.

The door seals behind him. And once again, you’re alone. Alone with the weight of what you can’t say. With the memory of the Soldier’s hand in yours — unmoving, unreadable, but not rejecting.

You stay there for a while in the silence… And somewhere inside, beneath the shame and the exhaustion, you feel something curl in your chest and dig its claws in.

You matter.

You know you do.

Even if they don’t want you to.

Interview over.

———

They drag you back to your cell, drop you on the floor — the way they always do.

Your fingertips are digging into your palms now. Hard enough to leave half-moon shapes behind. You don’t even realize it until your vision starts to blur.

You’re not crying. Not exactly. It’s not tears. It’s… pressure. Like something behind your ribs is pressing too hard against the inside of your bones. Like if you exhale too much, you’ll break.

They want you calm.

They want you quiet.

They want you to walk back into that room in two days like nothing is wrong. Like it’s all working.

You rise stiffly and move to the sink in your corner cell. The water is cold, almost sharp, when you splash it on your face — but it doesn’t help. The shake in your hands doesn’t stop. Your reflection stares back, hollow-eyed and pale, like a ghost wearing your skin.

You shouldn’t go there.

The thought comes soft, unspoken.

You could say you’re sick. You could fake a fever, a tremor, anything. Kern wouldn’t risk losing control of his precious asset. They’d delay. They’d reschedule. You could buy yourself time.

Time to breathe.

Time to forget the weight of his hand in yours. The way his thumb moved — just slightly — like he was real. Like he was choosing to stay.

You grip the edge of the sink tighter.

Because the truth is… you’re not scared of him.

You’re scared of what you’re becoming.

You’re scared that the silence between you was the first time in months you’ve felt like a person. That the sound of his voice — low, cautious, gentle — has been playing on a loop in your mind ever since.

“Why do you want this?”

“You don’t feel like them.”

You press your fists to your chest like you can push the memory out.

You’re not supposed to feel this. You were meant to soothe him. Anchor him. Be a tether, not a mirror.

But something’s shifting now. You’re starting to see him. Not just the shell. Not just the Winter Soldier. The man underneath.

And worse — he’s starting to see you back.

You lean your forehead against the cold concrete wall, breath shallow.

Don’t go, you tell yourself. Just this once. Just rest. Tell them you’re unwell. Keep your distance. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone.

But the truth slithers through you, dark and shameful.

You want to go back.

You want him to look at you again.

You want the silence. The stillness. The impossible safety of a man who could kill you in a heartbeat choosing not to.

You want to hear his voice again — not the blank voice they gave him, but the one that shook when he said your touch felt different.

Your knees give a little. You slide down the wall slowly, curl in on yourself.

And for the first time since you were dragged into this hell — you admit it.

You want him to choose you.

Not because he was ordered to. Not because you’re useful but because something inside him — something broken and forgotten — knows you.

You bury your face in your arms.

You won’t pretend to be sick.

You’ll go back.

Because you’re not afraid of the Soldier. You’re afraid of the way your heart beats quieter when he looks at you like you’re real.

And you don’t know if it’s love.

But it’s something.

And it’s already too late to stop it.

———

You step through like always — silent, steady, trained — but your heart is doing something wild behind your ribs. Like it’s trying to throw itself forward. Toward him.

He’s sitting exactly where he was all these times before. Ankles shackled, arms loose at his sides, head tilted slightly forward.

And again his eyes lift the moment you enter.

Not slowly. Not by accident. He waited.

Again.

You freeze for a half-second. Just long enough to catch it — the flicker in his face. The smallest change. A softening at the corner of his mouth. It’s not quite a smile.

But it’s close.

It’s gone in an instant — like he didn’t mean to let it slip.

But it happened.

And your breath catches like a wire pulled tight.

He saw you.

He sees you.

You sit across from him — slower than usual — not because you’re stalling, but because your body is listening now. Waiting to feel that strange stillness again. That hum between you. The one that doesn’t belong to Hydra.

For a few seconds, he just watches you. Not hostile. Not guarded. Just… present.

You wet your lips. Your voice is a whisper when it finally comes.

“Hi.”

His brow twitches. Not a reaction, not really — but not neutral, either. His head tilts just a little. “Why didn’t you come yesterday?” he asks.

You blink. You weren’t expecting that — for him to actually care this much about your presence. Or maybe you did?

I—” Your voice falters. You swallow. “Kern said so. Said we need time to reset”

“Kern?” His brow raised slightly.

“One of the agents.”

“Ah,” he nods, lightly. He’s quiet. Then, softly — softer than anything you’ve heard him say yet:

“I was waiting for you yesterday.”

The words hit you like a wave.

He missed you.

He doesn’t know it, maybe. Doesn’t have the language for it.

But his presence — his choice to say that — it’s everything.

Your hands fidget in your lap. You don’t reach for him this time. You don’t want to scare it off.

“You remembered I wasn’t there,” you say quietly, smiling softly at him, somehow with pride or maybe just pure happiness.

His eyes don’t leave yours.

“I remember you.”

The room tilts. You exhale shakily, eyes burning. You shouldn’t feel this much. You shouldn’t let it in. But the way he says it — like it costs him something — like every word is carved from stone and still he offers it to you. You nod. Just once. Like a vow.

He shifts slightly. The chains clink. Not threatening — just… movement. Adjustment. Like he’s trying to find where to put this feeling.

“I don’t know why I want you to come back,” he murmurs, eyes lowering. “But I do.”

You close your eyes. Just for a second. The pain in your chest is unbearable. Not because it hurts — but because it doesn’t. Because for the first time, you feel safe.

Not with the guards.

Not with the cameras.

Not with Kern.

With him. With the weapon they said could never be human again.

You don’t touch him this time, you don’t have to because when he looks up again — that not-quite-smile is back. Just a flicker. Just for you.

It stays there for half a breath longer this time before his face shutters again. There’s a thrum deep in your chest. Like something waking up. Something old and afraid and starved.

For connection.

For gentleness.

For someone who looks at you like you’re not a tool, not an asset, not a ghost in someone else’s war.

Just a girl.

Just a presence.

Your throat is dry, but you ask anyway — softly:

“What do you mean? About wanting me to come back.”

He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze drifts — down to your hands in your lap, to the floor, to the flicker of light overhead like it’s too bright now. Like he’s remembering something he’s not supposed to.

“I… don’t know,” he admits. “It’s easier when you’re here.”

The words are so quiet they could vanish. But they don’t. They land between you like a secret. You study him, unsure how to breathe around the ache blooming in your lungs.

“Easier?” you echo.

He nods, almost imperceptibly. His jaw tightens. You can tell it costs him something — not just to say it, but to feel it.

He shifts again. The metal chain tugs softly at his wrist, and his voice drops lower. “Everything else is loud. The missions. The resets. The voices.”

Your heart cracks.

“And me?”

He looks at you.

This time, really looks — not like a soldier cataloging a target, but like a man trying to remember what peace looks like.

“You’re quiet,” he says. “Not in your voice. Just… in here.” He taps a finger to his temple.

You blink. He means your mind. The place no one else ever touches without breaking something. You blink again, and tears threaten — hot, unwelcome, dangerous. You look away fast. You don’t want him to see.

But he already has. His metal hand shifts, inching forward on instinct — not close enough to touch, but almost. “I just… I don’t like when you’re gone,” he says, and it sounds raw. Unfiltered.

It cuts straight through you. You lift your eyes again. “Neither do I.”

There’s silence. Thick, heavy silence.

But it isn’t empty.

It means something now.

You feel it — like the gravity in the room changed. Like you could fall into him if you let yourself.

His eyes are still on you.

“You should touch me again,” he says suddenly.

It knocks the wind from you. Your lips part. “What?”

“Like last time,” he says, low. “When you asked.”

Your pulse spikes. You hadn’t thought he would ask you that. Not that.

“Did you like it?” you whisper, heart pounding.

He nods once. “Didn’t hurt,” he says.

Then, softer: “Felt real.”

Your hand moves without thinking — slow, careful — like you’re reaching for a wounded animal and when your fingertips brush his metal hand this time, he doesn’t flinch.

He watches the contact. Watches you.

And then — impossibly — he turns his hand over, offering the palm.

Letting you hold it.

Like he’s ready.

Like he wants it.

You curl your fingers into his and lets out a breath.

And that smile — that flicker — returns. Still small. Still almost nothing… But it’s there for you.

His hand is heavy in yours — cool metal, impossible strength — but it doesn’t scare you.

Because he gave it to you.

Because he chose.

And now he’s watching you again — not the way he did before, sharp and assessing — but like he’s trying to understand something. Something inside you he doesn’t have words for yet. You stroke your thumb gently across the metal. He glances down at the contact.

Then — his voice, low and strange:

“Do they hurt you?”

You freeze. Your breath catches. He doesn’t look up right away, like he’s afraid of the answer. Or what it’ll do to him and you don’t answer at first. You can’t. Because something in your chest is splintering. Not from fear. Not from pain. From being seen.

You swallow hard. Try to speak. “Why are you asking me that?”

He finally lifts his gaze… And his eyes — god — there’s something new in them now. A tension. A fury, quiet and coiled. Still buried deep beneath all the conditioning, but there.

Because you didn’t say no.

Because you hesitated.

His jaw works. “I know what it’s like. To be used.”

Your lips part, you want to say something but the words don’t come because he’s still speaking. Still unfolding.

“They hurt me,” he says, voice flat. “Strap me down. Run wires through my skull. Rip out what they don’t like and fill it with noise.” His jaw clenches. “I hate them,” he says. The words are soft. Final.

Then he glances at your hand still wrapped in his — as if realizing it’s the only gentle thing in the room. “I don’t want them to do that to you.”

Your throat is too tight to answer.

He leans forward slightly. Just an inch. Just enough for you to feel it — the weight of his concern. The shield forming where no one taught him to build one.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks again, quieter this time.

And you realize: he isn’t asking to know. He’s asking so he can remember. So he can stop them. So he can keep that one piece of you safe — whatever part they haven’t already broken.

You try to smile. It trembles. “Not the way they hurt you,” you say. “But… it’s not easy.”

His eyes narrow slightly. A flicker of emotion — one that doesn’t belong to Hydra. Not discipline. Not calculation.

Something almost… feral.

You squeeze his hand gently. “They tell me I’m here to help you,” you whisper. “But it doesn’t feel like that.”

He tilts his head. “What does it feel like?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Because what it feels like — right now — is this:

You, sitting across from a man who was turned into a ghost, who was stripped of everything soft — and still, somehow, he is trying to protect you.

And that makes you feel something so devastatingly human, you don’t know what to do with it. So instead, you whisper the only truth that doesn’t hurt:

“I like it better when it’s just us.”

His gaze lingers on your face.

“Me too.”

You’re still holding his hand when the door creaks open. You both flinch — not from fear. From instinct.

You don’t know how long you sat there, it didn’t feel real. You snap back to reality the moment you hear the door open.

The spell breaks.

Kern enters like he always does: clipboard in one hand, a pen tapping against his thigh. But this time, he doesn’t approach with tests or notes. He stays near the door. Watching.

You straighten slowly, tense. The soldier shifts too, eyes flicking from you to the intruder. His fingers tighten around yours.

And that’s when you know something’s wrong.

Kern’s expression is too calm. Too still. He tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing.

“Let’s run a little test,” he says. “Shall we?”

You open your mouth. “Kern—”

But it’s already too late.

His voice is low. Deliberate. And Russian.

“Желание.”

Soldier jerks. His breath hitches — not a gasp, but close. Like something inside him just twitched.

You turn sharply. “Stop it—!”

Kern’s voice is louder now. Crisp. Measured. “Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет.”

“No—!” You lurch to your feet, but Soldier doesn’t move. He can’t.

He’s shaking now — barely. Like his muscles are locked in a war you can’t see.

“Печь. Девять.”

His jaw clenches. The metal hand curls into a fist.

“Kern, please!” you snap.

But Kern doesn’t even blink. “Добросердечный. Возвращение ��а родину.”

Soldier lurches forward like he’s being pulled. His breath is ragged now — almost a growl.

You reach for him. You try, you so desperately try to stop this, whatever this is. You try to hold it together. You turn to The Soldier, you try to speak to him through it. “It’s okay. You’re okay—”

And then, softly, Kern finishes it:

“Один. Грузовой вагон.”

Silence.

He rises.

Like a shadow.

Like something unchained.

Your breath catches as you stumble backward.

He’s looking through you now. Like you’re not there. Not really. The Soldier’s breathing is fast now. His eyes dart — not to Kern. Not to you. To the floor. To the air. Like he’s somewhere else.

Kern watches like a scientist in a lab.

You know what this is — what he wants. He’s trying to break it. Break you. Wants to see if he will hurt you. Wants to prove you’re wrong to believe he’s something more than a weapon.

Your voice trembles. “Please…”

He steps forward. Slow. Measured. His eyes are wide but empty. Hollow.

“It’s me. Little Dove. You remember me.”

Nothing.

You don’t move. You don’t run. You just breathe — slow and steady — even though your body is screaming. “Please,” you whisper, “don’t let them take this from you.”

His metal arm lifts. You flinch—but don’t close your eyes.

He stops. His hand shakes. Hard. Like he’s fighting it. Like there’s something else screaming inside him, too.

And then everything snaps.

The Soldier grabs you by the throat. You don’t even have time to scream. The cold of his metal hand is the first thing you feel — the pressure second. He pins you back, not slamming but shoving, calculated and brutal. Your feet skid against the floor. Your hands claw at his wrist.

You can’t breathe.

Your vision starts to blur.

But you don’t fight him. You look at him and your lips move even without air. “Please.”

For a heartbeat, nothing happens.

Then — his expression cracks. His eyes widen. Blink. Blink again.

And then he sees you.

The Soldier’s grip falters.

He looks down at his hand.

At your throat.

At the bruises already forming.

And he stumbles back like he’s been shot.

He releases you so fast you hit the ground coughing, air burning in your lungs. His gaze is still fixed on his own hand.

Like he doesn’t understand how it got there.

Like it betrayed him.

He backs up. Shaking. Trembling. His mouth opens like he’s going to say something — but nothing comes out.

Kern, still standing by the door, clicks his pen.

“Interesting,” he says mildly.

You look up at him, eyes burning. “You did this,” you rasp.

But he’s not even looking at you anymore.

He’s watching the Soldier — who’s still staring at his metal arm, like it’s no longer a part of him. Like it’s a weapon that acted on its own.

And maybe it did.

Kern smiles faintly, glancing at you.

“Good to know the programming still works on you.”

You’re still gasping when the door bursts open again. Two guards sweep in like a storm — faceless, armored, efficient. You barely lift your head before they’re on you.

“Wait—” your voice is hoarse, broken. “Don’t—”

Gloved hands seize your arms.

You thrash, cough, try to hold onto the floor, something, but they’ve done this too many times. You’re yanked to your feet with such force your knees nearly buckle.

The Soldier jerks forward. Not far — the chains stop him. But his body reacts on instinct. Like he’s going to stop them.

And then he doesn’t.

He freezes.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t reach. Doesn’t fight.

He just stands there, watching.

Frozen in horror.

Like if he moves again, he’ll hurt you worse.

Like he already believes he’s a monster.

“Let me go!” you cry, struggling hard now. “He didn’t mean to—”

The guards don’t care. They drag you out anyway.

Your feet scrape against the floor. You’re coughing and pulling and twisting, but the Soldier’s eyes never leave yours — not even when you disappear through the door, not even when Kern steps into his line of sight again.

That shattered look stays. Even when you’re gone.

And Kern?

He just laughs under his breath.

“Attachment,” he says casually. “Always the most fragile weakness.”

———

The cell door slams behind you like a gunshot.

You stumble forward, landing hard on your knees. The air still won’t come right — your throat burns, every breath a jagged edge.

You’re not crying.

You won’t.

Even if your hands are shaking, even if your neck is raw and purpled, even if your chest feels like something has been torn out — you refuse to give them that.

The heavy click of boots follows. You don’t need to look to know it’s him.

Kern.

He lets the silence stretch long, lets it crawl into the corners of the room like mold.

“I warned you,” he says at last, voice calm. Too calm. “You get too close to fire — you’ll get burned, little dove.” He lets out a dark chuckle. “Such a nickname he’s got you, huh?”

You press your palms into the floor. You want to rise. You want to scream.

But you’re still trying to breathe.

“Don’t look so surprised,” he continues. “That was always going to happen. It’s what he is. What he was made to be.”

Your voice is hoarse when it scrapes out. “You did it on purpose.”

He crouches beside you, one hand on his knee, the other tapping a cigarette against a silver case he hasn’t even opened.

“I reminded him,” Kern says with mock patience. “That’s all. A few simple words. And look how fast he remembered who he belongs to.”

You look up at him now — eyes burning.

“That wasn’t him.”

Kern grins, small and smug. “No? Then who was it choking the life out of you?”

You don’t blink. “You.”

That wipes the grin clean off his face for a second. But he recovers fast — steps back with a small exhale, like you’ve amused him instead of landed a blow.

“Sentimental attachment makes you sloppy,” he says. “We needed to reset expectations.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Your voice is fraying.

But your glare says enough.

Kern taps his cigarette case once against the bars before turning for the exit.

“Rest up. You’ll see him again soon. Maybe next time he’ll finish the job.”

And then he’s gone.

The door slams shut again. This time it sounds like the end of something.

But you pull yourself up slowly, hands trembling, blood singing in your ears.

Because it’s not the end.

Not even close.

———

You step into the room like always.

But nothing feels like always.

Your throat still aches — not from the pressure, but from the silence that followed. From the sound of his voice gone flat. From the feel of cold metal where warmth had started to grow.

Your skin blooms with bruises — stark against your collarbone and the fragile stem of your neck. You tried to cover them. Kern didn’t bother. Maybe he wanted them seen.

Maybe he wanted to see them.

But the Winter Soldier doesn’t look at you.

He always did. Every time before, the second you crossed the threshold, his gaze found yours — sharp, searching, strange.

Now? His head is down. Eyes low. Shackled hands limp in his lap.

And the silence is unbearable.

You swallow — wincing at the pull. You take slow, careful steps towards him and sit down on the ground next to him without a word. You try not to flinch when the chains rattle. Try not to remember the sound of them dragging as he stood and reached for your throat.

His voice, when it finally comes, is hoarse.

“I told them I didn’t want you back.”

Your heart doesn’t break.

It sinks — cold and slow, like it’s being drowned.

You don’t answer right away. You don’t know how.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says next — quiet, broken. “I told them. I told them.”

His hands flex in the cuffs. Not violently. Like he’s checking they’re still there. That he’s still bound.

“I would never—” He cuts off. Shakes his head like the words don’t belong to him.

You sit still. You have to — not out of fear, but something deeper. Something aching. You see it on him. In him.

He’s afraid.

Not of you.

Of himself.

“It wasn’t you,” you say softly.

He flinches. “I hurt you,” he mutters, barely audible. “I saw the marks. I felt it.” He glances at your bruised neck. “I still see them.”

You want to reach for him — god, you do — but you don’t because you know — even your kindness could cut him now.

“I wasn’t afraid of you,” you whisper.

His head lifts just slightly — not all the way. Like he wants to look, but can’t bear what he’ll see.

“Then what were you afraid of?” he asks, voice splintering.

You meet his eyes — because someone has to.

“Of losing you to them.”

That gets him.

His jaw tightens, eyes burning with something he doesn’t have a name for. His whole body goes still, like if he breathes wrong, he’ll shatter.

“I don’t want to be theirs anymore,” he says, and it’s a confession. A plea. “But they live in me.”

“They don’t have to win,” you say. “Not if you fight.”

“And if I lose?”

“You won’t lose me.”

He looks at you now and there’s so much pain in it — but something else, too. Something like hope.

You sit in the quiet, watching him. His face is unreadable again — the stillness of a weapon, not a man.

But you know better now. Slowly — so slowly — you lift your hand. Just an inch off your thigh. Palm open. Gentle. Not demanding. Just offering.

He sees it.

And flinches.

“Don’t.”

It’s sharp. Not loud, but final. Like he’s choking on glass.

Your hand falls. Your throat closes and then — because you can’t just leave it there — your voice cracks open.

“Please.”

He shakes his head. Not at you. At himself.

“I can’t… I don’t trust what I’ll do.”

You blink through the burn in your eyes. You don’t look away.

“I do.”

He exhales through his nose, bitter and broken.

“You shouldn’t.”

You inch closer, your fingers trembling in your lap.

“They made you do it,” you whisper. “Not you. Not the man who waited for me. Who remembered me.”

He looks at you — and it’s unbearable. His eyes are wild with guilt. With panic.

“They’ll do it again,” he rasps. “You don’t understand. They live in me.”

“I don’t care,” you say, and the truth of it rocks through you. “They can live in you. They can whisper and push and break you in every way — but they don’t get this.”

He’s frozen.

“This thing we built?” you whisper. “They don’t get it. Not unless we give it to them.”

His breath is ragged now. Like he’s drowning. Like every word you speak is pulling him toward the surface and he doesn’t know how to breathe up here anymore.

“I don’t have anyone else,” you say. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” You reach for him again. Hand open. Shaking. “Please,” you whisper. “Let me remind you.”

And this time — this time — he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t move, either. Doesn’t lean in or meet your touch. He just lets it happen.

Your fingers brush the back of his hand — barely there. Just skin against metal. Warmth against cold.

His eyes close like it hurts. Not the pain of impact. The pain of trust.

You just sit there, hand resting lightly over his. He just feels human and he lets you hold what little of him is left.

You don’t mean to say it.

Not here. Not like this.

But the words have been sitting in your chest too long, and they hurt more staying quiet.

“I’m not sure what I feel toward you,” you whisper.

His head shifts slightly. Just enough to show he’s listening — but he doesn’t look at you. Not yet.

Your fingers curl against your knees. You stare at them like they might hold the rest of the sentence.

“But it’s… something.”

He still doesn’t move.

“And I know I shouldn’t feel anything at all. Not for you. Not in this place.” You let out a dry, quiet breath. “But I do.”

The silence stretches — and for a second, it feels unbearable. Like you might shatter inside it.

“I don’t know what to call it,” you murmur. “But I keep thinking about you. Not just when I’m here.”

You glance up. His jaw is tight. Shoulders locked. Like he’s holding something back with all the force he has.

“And I know it’s stupid,” you go on, voice cracking. “I know they could rip it away at any second. But what we’ve built — this thing between us — it means something.”

He flinches like it hurts to hear that.

But you keep going. Because if you don’t say it now, you never will.

“You said you remembered me.” Your throat tightens. “Even when you weren’t supposed to. Even when you probably didn’t want to.”

You lift your eyes to him again. This time, he meets them.

And the look he gives you — it wrecks you.

Because it’s not blank. It’s not cold.

It’s grief.

“I don’t want to lose that,” you say softly. “I don’t want to lose you.”

And for the first time in too long — he reaches back.

Slowly, like he’s not sure if the moment is real — like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he touches you wrong — he leans forward.

You barely breathe.

His metal hand rises first. Hesitates midair.

Then it cups your cheek — careful, gentle, reverent.

You don’t move. You don’t flinch.

And when he leans in — when his lips brush yours — it’s not with hunger. It’s not control.

It’s longing. It’s fear. It’s hope.

And you kiss him back like it’s the only real thing in the world.

Because maybe it is.

Next Chapter 🕊️

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felassan · 1 year ago

Text

June 14th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for second Q&A (August 30th)] | [Link to video recording for second Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Corinne Busche, John Epler, Matt Rhodes and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

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Katey: Hello!

John: Hello.

Katey: Beautiful, your mic sounds beautiful. How's everybody doing?

John: Excellent. I, just as a headsup, I have some folks doing some service, in the next room so, if I, if you hear background noise, that's what that is.

Katey: No worries at all. Well I hope that everybody who's been waiting in here is really excited, because I'm super excited. I'm Katey. I'm the Community Manager. If you don't already know, you can usually see my name at the top of this Discord server. But I'm joined here with some awesome guests that I'll let introduce themselves. Let's start with Corinne.

Corinne: Can you hear me okay?

John: Yep.

Katey: Yep, we can hear you beautifully.

Corinne: Great, perfect. I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

John: Awesome. I'm John Epler, Creative Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Corinne: John!

John: Hello.

Katey: And then we've also got Matt Rhodes, who may be struggling to find the unmute button which is at the bottom left.

Corinne: Our, our resident artist-poet, Matt Rhodes.

Katey: I could unmute him, actually, I don't know if I can unmute him, but if he needs help, he can message me on the side.

John: The joys of being a giant nerd is I spend a lot of time on Discord anyway, so.

Corinne: Well there you go, right?

Katey: Fair enough. Alright, well, we have a ton of questions to answer. We probably won't be able to get to all of them today. You all have sent in so many really really great answers, sorry, questions for us to answer. And if we don't get to them today, we're hoping to be able to do things like this in the future. So without further ado, I'll get started. First question's a bit of a soft ball, I feel. If you could belong to any of the main factions shown in the game, which would you choose?

Corinne: I mean, listen Katey, you say softball, but like, this is hard! I’m gonna cheat, and I’m gonna give you two. So for fashion, the Antivan Crows, all day long. Their threads, you’re gonna love it. For vibes, though, like the ones that capture my vibe, Mourn Watch. Gimme those necromancers.

John: Those are good answers. I have, I have one for fashion, and also for, just general faction I’d like to be a part of. Veil Jumpers. Who doesn’t like a nice walk in the forest, y’know? Even if that forest is filled with horrifying monsters and terrifying anomalies, but yeah.

Katey: I love that. I know that Matt has a few technical issues – oh, he’s unmuted. There we go. Or maybe not. That’s okay, I think we can move on.

John: The Fade has taken Matt.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right.

Katey: Yes. One quick thing, if you check your settings, the cog-wheel in the bottom left, make sure that your voice, like, your audio is all good. If you’re still hearing the music, feel free to maybe, force-quit Discord and rejoin by just joining the stage directly. And mute the music before you come in. Okay. I can move on to the next question for now. I’ve seen, so this question was from Acra. I’ve seen a lot of talk about only having two companions in your party instead of three for this game. What is the reasoning behind this and will we still get the same companion conversations and banter as seen in the previous Dragon Age games?

Corinne: Ooh, this is such a good question. Thankyou, whoever submitted this one. Yeah, I’ll guess I’ll start and then I’ll turn it over to John Epler. So, first of all, as you saw in the gameplay reveal, this is a much more intimate experience. We’ve pulled the camera in. For those that aren’t aware, the reason why is we want you to feel like you actually are in this world, right? Like, you’re walking these city streets of Minrathous, you’re looking up, seeing the buildings all around you, you’re a part of this place. So it’s much more intimate, and we believe as the narrative unfolds this creates a lot more immersion. Now, how that relates to companions is in doing this, we went back and forth on it a lot, but we actually found, with this perspective, having two companions, really allows them more visibility and presence. We’ve talked about the incredible depth and focus we’ve put on fleshing out these companions, they’re very fully-realized. So here, you really get to see them more clearly, you get to see them shine. When you see Lace Harding jump into the air and unleash a volley of arrows, you can only really get that because of that more intimate view. So I love the spotlight that’s been put on them. But, I think, in addition to the banter, one of the things that people are wondering about is, okay, but what about gameplay? So again, this has come about from our testing, working with the internal team, also our lovely Council of players. We just found that when you’re playing in the combat system, when you’re planning your strategies, two really felt like the right number to manage. So keep in mind, Rook has a lot of different types of actions, Abilities, individual attacks that are more fully fleshed-out than ever before. Timing and positioning matter a lot. So this really felt like the right balance to have. The number of inputs and actions we’re asking you as a player to take, including directing your companions, is higher than ever before. And I will also say, I engage with the companions, like I actively control what they’re doing more than I ever have before in any of the other three games. But John, I’ll toss it over to you for the banter. That’s kind of like the, we got a two-for-one there.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Corinne: I think that’s a, a great question.

John: So - it’s a great question, yeah. I mean honestly, I don’t think you could actually stop the writers from writing banter. I will say for myself, it’s, it’s one of the more light but fun things to do. You get to write little stories, little arcs between different characters. And I mean, The Veilguard is no different. Banter is still absolutely core part of it. You know, we’ve got global banter, you know, the general stuff that you get in all spaces, as well as mission-specific stuff. But, yeah, it’s definitely still a big thing. I think it’s, if anything it’s the most we’ve, we’ve ever done for pairings of companions. Beyond that we’ve also made sure, and I mean I’ve been on Dragon Age for a while, and I know there’s been issues, you know, things like, okay, well I don’t wanna miss this banter. So we’ve even added stuff like some interruptible and resumable banter as well, just to make sure that, because again, it’s a core part of the experience. Everyone loves hearing these companions talk to each other, everyone loves hearing these little stories and relationships develop over the course of the game and, as mentioned before, companions are the heart of this experience and banter is a big part of that, so, you still have it, it’s, if anything, like I said, you could not stop the writers from doing it even if we tried, so.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right. Well, John, you know, listening to you speak, one thing that comes to mind, maybe people are wondering, with two companions in the field do I get less interaction between, that, like do I get to see my companions interacting in a broader group more often.

John: Oh -

Corinne: And, the way you’ll gather them around the kitchen table, there’s just so many of those moments where they’re all interacting with each other.

John: Well, I think –

Corinne: Those are some of my favorite parts.

John: Yeah, and I think, yeah, and actually that’s a, a good call, because I think the other side of it is, we’re not talking too much about your home or anything, but, we also want to make sure that they feel like they have a relationships and a life outside of just, the times you take a certain pair of companions out on the field. So we made sure that, they have those interactions there as well.

Katey: Love that. Let’s see. Um, Matt, are we, are we all set, are we good? Yes? No? Okay. I can continue and we can come back to some of your questions. Alright. So that, I loved the answers to those. How customizable is the backstory of Rook? Will we get to determine their past in the Character Creator? And that was asked by Briar.

John: Yeah, so. Absolutely. So, one of, each, Rook has six different backgrounds that you can choose from. Each of them is tied to one of the major factions in The Veilguard and each one sets out who Rook was before they recruited, were recruited by Varric, and. Well that sets out the broad events. As you go through the game, as you’re gonna have conversations, either with members of your faction, other characters, you can define, not just what those events were, but what they meant to you, what was your motivation, what was the kind of person you are as you build up Rook, because again, we wanna make sure that roleplaying is at the heart of this experience. And taking Rook, giving them, again, giving them background to ground them in the world but then letting you decide what that means and what that says about you is also a big part of it, so. And again, there are six different factions in this game, two which, anyone who’s played Dragon Age for a while will remember. You’ve got the Grey Wardens. You’ve got the Antivan Crows. We also have, in addition to that, we have four new ones, because we’re in northern Thedas. We have the Veil Jumpers. We have the Mourn Watch. We have the Shadow Dragons, and we have the Lords of Fortune, so. Again, a lot of different options, a lot of different background, and a lot of opportunities to really define what your, who your Rook was, and who they are now, so.

Katey: Amazing. Will crafting return? If yes, has it been improved over the system in Inquisition? Asked by Some Dude.

Matt: Testing.

Katey: Oh hey Matt!

Corinne: “Some Dude”, is that, I’m gonna assume “Some Dude” is a username. Great question.

Katey: Yes.

Corinne: Welcome Matt, the lovely Matt Rhodes.

Matt: Testing, testing.

Corinne: Welcome, welcome, hello. Alright, so, will crafting return? You can absolutely improve and customize your gear, yes, that is a big part of RPG progression, so yes you can improve and customize it. I will say, though, it’s different this time around, and it does get into spoiler territory, so I, I’m gonna be a little bit cagey about it, but there might be a mysterious entity that assists you with that that’ll be an important part of the narrative.

Katey: So mysterious.

Corinne: Oooh!

Katey: Matt, I’m gonna actually go back to our first question so that you can answer, so everyone knows.

Matt: Thank you.

Katey: What faction, what faction you would choose if you could choose one for yourself?

Matt: Absolutely, oh, for me it’s definitely the Lords of Fortune. I’ve had a chance to try out a bunch of them, but I think I’ve finally settled on them. And it’s largely just because pirate-barbarian is just such a great combination of elements, so. Treasure-hunting plus beaches and palm trees and all that stuff, it’s a, it’s a really good mix, so that’s kinda my default.

Katey: I think I’m with you there, for sure. How about this one - this one was definitely asked probably amongst the most in Discord. Axolotl asks, can we kiss or romance Manfred the skeleton?

Matt: Uh, I, I would say, not that skeleton, but we’re not saying no skeletons.

Katey: I love that answer.

Corinne: This is my favorite answer so far.

Katey: Alright, so I’m gonna get back on track here. Alright. What, what were some of the development considerations that you had to take into account to ensure that this new game flows and functions with prior games, and Dragon Age Keep, if Keep is being utilized?

Corinne: Ooh, that’s a good one too. So, first of all, I would, I would point everyone to, we did an interview with IGN that goes into some of the details there, so, like, if you want a deeper dive on it, check out that article. But just to summarize, we have taken a different approach on how you import your decisions this time around. It’s now actually been fully-integrated into the Character Creator, and kinda serves a dual purpose, to be honest. I, I playfully, it’s not called this in-game, but I playfully think of it as ‘Last Time On Dragon Age’.

Katey: I love that.

Corinne: Right? Now, when I talk about its dual purpose, it’s been ten years since the last Dragon Age game released, so it serves as a refresher on critical events as well as allowing you to re-make those decisions that are critical to you. The thing I love about it is, it’s very highly visual, it uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic, so it’s actually really visual and playful experience as you go through it. It is very much important to us that it’s built into the client, though. You can play this game entirely offline. No connection. You don’t have to link to your EA accounts, like that’s been a really big request. So, the refresher plus make those decisions in-client, I think we’re all pretty happy about that. I don’t wanna spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, like, look, y’all don’t want the spoilers, but I will say, it’s been a really interesting creative intersection for us, because on the one hand, this is a whole new adventure. You’re in northern Thedas, these locations that you’ve literally never been to before. So that affects some of what will matter and what we’re not using this time around, as far as decisions. But obviously there’s some very, very clear connections to existing characters. It’s no secret that the Inquisitor, our dear Inky, is gonna show up, so, that’s, that’s a factor.

Katey: Peachy asks, will this next game be an open-world game, or is it just contained to Tevinter?

John: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you are in northern Thedas, but the game only begins in Minrathous, it doesn’t stay there. I’m, I think one of the most exciting things for me, honestly, and again, to Corinne’s earlier point about spoilers, I don’t wanna get into too much spoiler detail, but getting to go to, and work with the art team, work with the narrative, work with the design team to build out these locations that we’ve talked about. Places that characters have referred to as where they’ve come from, places that characters, obviously, in previous games, have hailed from, has been absolutely exciting. So, it’s, you do start in Tevinter, you do start in Minrathous, but again, that’s not the entire game by any stretch. So yeah.

Corinne: Yeah, and the first half of it is, is it an open-world game? We’ve gone back to what we believe delivers the best, most curated –

John: Mhm.

Corinne: - intense narratives. So, this is a hand-crafted experience, it’s mission-based. Now, these locations can open up. You can go back, solve mysteries, do some really great side-content. Not fetch-quests, not grind-quests, some really great side content.

John: Mhm.

Corinne: But, I wanna be clear. It’s, it’s a really curated, hand-crafted experience.

John: And just to, just to bounce off of that very quickly. The most important thing for us, to what Corinne was saying about hand-crafted, obviously we’ve talked about how, you know, narrative, story, characters, are the most, are critical to us, and this has allowed us to build these experiences in a way that emphasize that, extremely long, while still, again, tying into the story threads and the story beats, so.

Katey: Awesome. TastefulToxel wants to know - will the companions have unique specializations like Dragon Age II, or will it be the same ones we will have access to as the player in like DA: Origins, or Inquisition?

Corinne: Oh, cool. Hey TastefulToxel. Yeah, so, cool question. I think the best way for me to describe this is that, yes, our companions will have Abilities that are truly unique to them. But also, the companions do fall into the archetypes of mage, rogue, and warrior. Like, for instance, you might be surprised to hear, because she has a bow, but Bellara is, in fact, a mage, and I, I love that. So, some of the Abilities, the bulk of the Abilities of the companions are based on their own unique personality. Like, Neve is the only mage that is an Ice Mage, so you get distinct Abilities for her. But, because she’s a mage, she does have access to Abilities that all the mages share, like Time Slow. So we really like the balance there. It’s like a good mix of representing their archetype, their class, and also their distinct specialization or personality, whatever you wanna call it.

John: Yeah, actually, I would actually say the word ‘personality’ is a really great one because that’s, again, each of these characters exists, each of these characters have a history, have a story of how they became who they were, and part of that was finding that intersection between narrative and gameplay, and making sure that, again, we, we serve the needs of gameplay but also allow these characters to breathe and exist as their own people, not just in conversation, but out of conversations, as well.

Corinne: I would also say as part of that core mage kit, healing spells are there, so any of your mages, you wanna make ‘em a healer, do that.

Katey: Lunasoul Darkmoon asks, will The Veilguard have tactical combat still?

Corinne: Ooh, such a good one, such a good one. Okay. Yes! Combat gets quite tactical, like, obviously this is an evolution of the combat system, and I talked about immersion, wanting you, to put you in the world, like you’re actually living and existing in it, but it is very tactical. And, I will say, we have a robust difficulty system. The tactics are increasingly important the higher difficulty level you go. So like, look, if you’re showing up for a highly tactical experience, I would crank that difficulty level in particular. But I wanna make clear, I’m, super, I wanna make sure I’m super clear in my answer. You saw the gameplay reveal. Our pause-time tactical mode is not overhead. It stays close to Rook. It does allow you to cycle between targets, both in and out of combat, there’s a reason for that. As the game progresses, and you didn’t see this in that opening hour of the game, but it’ll display strategic information on the enemies, so like, what are their vulnerabilities, what are their elemental weaknesses, their enhancements, what are they resistant to? So your type of Abilities, learning into elemental gameplay, matters a lot. I’d also say, this is a long answer, it’s such a good question – tactical decision-making also takes the form, I would say this is front and center, of coordinating your Ability usage between Rook and your companions to create synergies, or really devastating – we call them – detonation combos. So, let me give you a couple of examples, because it can be a little hard to visualize, so hopefully this helps. So one of the tactics that I personally enjoy in my own builds, I just recently played as a Veil Ranger, I love it, it’s one of my favorites. If I’m fighting Fade-touched enemies in Arlathan, I like to use Bellara’s Galvanized Tear to pull enemies together, it’s like a gravity well. You then Slow Time with Neve and, Slow Time affects the world around you, but it does not affect you, so you clump them up, you Slow Time, and then with Rook, I come in and do, like a devastating AOE or damage over time spell or Ability, and it’s even better if it’s a lightning-based Ability, because the Fade-touched in Arlathan are vulnerable to that. So there’s so many layers of coordination and strategy and tactics. Now we did talk about the devastating, like, detonation combos, honestly, that’s probably one of my favorite features, because that’s when you’re really leaning into explicit teamwork between your companions and Rook, or, the companions together. So when I, when I build out my team and I’m going into a mission, I try to ensure that I have at least a couple of possible synergies, detonation combo synergies within my team. Might be between Harding and Neve, or it might be between Neve and me, or it might be both. So here, I would go into battle, I’d pause time, open the Ability Wheel, get information on the enemy, and the Wheel will actually tell me that there is a synergy combo, you might have seen a screenshot that says “combo available”. It will remind you of those synergies between companions. You can queue both of those Abilities up at the same time, go, close out of the pause-time menu, they’ll both execute, both Abilities will happen, then the detonation AOE happens, applies debuffs to all the enemies in a radius of it, it’s so satisfying, it’s so satisfying, I can’t wait for y’all to see it. But the interesting thing is that too is a tactical choice. I’m choosing to use my companions to do that, and that means, in that moment, I’m not using them to heal me, or to give me that defense bonus, or to knock an enemy off a ledge, so it’s about the opportunity cost. I, I could spend the rest of the session talking about this, I, apologies for being long-winded, but this is just one of my favorite parts of, of the game.

Katey: That was a great answer. Can you choose Rook’s pronouns? If yes, being, is being non-binary an option? And also, how detailed is Character Creation?

Corinne: Hell yeah you can select your pronouns! Absolutely. You can actually select both your pronouns and your gender, because those are related concepts, but they’re not actually the exact same thing, so. It’s really cool. Yeah, you can be non-binary. We have they/them, she/her, he/him. Yes, emphatic yes. How detailed is the Character Creator? Oh my goodness, y’all. Like. Very! I don’t wanna give away too much just yet, but it’s very, very deep. It has been revealed, it’s out there in a couple of articles, about the focus on hair, the focus on skin-tones that are done respectfully, full-body customization, hell yeah, we love to see it. But we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna show you a lot more on Character Creator, but we wanna make sure we have the time and space to, to do that.

Katey: Will there be a Photo Mode in-game?

Corinne: So that is something we’re actively looking into. We know there’s a tonne of interest, so stay tuned on that one. But we are very much looking into it.

Matt: I can add to that, is a feature that is, that, we like, we like the idea of, and, and, it’s not just player-facing but internally, it’s a really helpful thing for us as we’re, as we’re building things out to have that so it’s, it’s, we’ll let ya know.

Corinne: Yes, yeah, absolutely. We, we are as geeked on that possibility as you all are.

Katey: A lot of people were asking about Abilities. This one is from Clemmy. Abilities, I don’t think I saw this answered yet, but are we going to be limited in how many Abilities we can pick from the Wheel?

Corinne: Ah! Yes, yes, yes. So, Ability Wheel does have a capacity. You have to choose which three Abilities you wanna bring for Rook, which three for one of your companions, and which three for another companion. And what I, what I like about this is there is, kind of, an emergent gameplay depending on who you and your companions are coming into the mission with. Now the reason for that is, it actually creates really interesting balance of strategizing, having to do that strategy about your kit, your combat kit, before the mission. And then the tactical decisions once you’re in the field in combat, deciding what to do. But, I do wanna clear one thing up, because, while there are three Ability slots for Rook, there’s so much more than that. Other actions that you can perform directly from the Wheel include, you’ll have an Ultimate Ability, associated with your class or your specialization, so there’s variance there. There’s a type of items that you’ll get that function like Abilities, they’re typically like buffs and enhancements in form of Runes. So you’ll control that for Rook and/or the team from the Wheel. You may have also seen that you can direct which targets your companions will focus on, but what you might not know is that a lot of the companion gear really synergizes with that directing your companions. When you issue those commands, that too will proc based on the gear they have equipped. Really interesting and strategic effects. They can be more Ability-like, more, like, procced effects, there’s just so much from the Wheel, that once you get in and see everything working together, becomes more and more apparent.

Katey: We have another question from TastefulToxel which is, will Fireball and Cone of Cold be back as skills, or as spells in Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Corinne: Ohh, I love, all these combat questions, really good. So Fireball and Cone of Cold aren’t specifically back, however, their successors are. Frost Nova and Meteor. So these serve the exact same combat role and function as those other Abilities. I would also say, it gives ‘em quite the glow-up, so. Meteor in particular, like, so satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed Meteor, it’s really wonderful.

Katey: What accessibility features are available? I would love to know if there’s an arachnophobia mode. Will there be mod support?

Corinne: Oh my goodness, arachnophobia. I am wicked afraid of spiders too, my partner always laughs at me. I’m just terrified of them. That said, that’s one we’re going to save for a little bit closer to launch before we’ll go into full details about accessibility features. But I do wanna assure you, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this topic so you can play the game in a way that really works for you. I’m, I’m excited to share that with you when the time is right.

Katey: So this one is from a username named Cookie. How long is the time-skip from Inquisition to The Veilguard? I know we’ll probably get more info on this, but I’m so curious.

John: Yeah, so, anyone who’s paid attention to Dragon Age, and I can say as somebody who’s been on Dragon Age since Origins, timelines are always a little iffy. They change, and they morph over development as we see how long events taking. But, for The Veilguard, we were actually pretty consistent from the start. It’s been about ten years since the events of Trespasser. As you may or may not have noticed, Varric’s become a little bit of a silver fox. I know, I’ve heard, seen, I’ve seen a lot of comments on that on social media, but, yeah, ten years. Solas’ ritual is taken time to set up and you’re kinda coming in at the end of that hunt, so.

Katey: Siddy is asking the hardest-hitting question which is, is Solas still bald?

Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you’ve watched the gameplay thing, we can all confirm, yes, Solas is still bald, Solas is still Solas. We’ve, we’ve, I really, I really like how Solas has turned out this time around. I will say, here’s a comment on this specific question that’s gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but, once you get a chance to play it a little bit more, maybe you’ll see it. In Thedas, ancient elves, they go bald when they’re like millennia old, so. Solas wasn’t always bald. So if you were to end up, end up seeing what Solas looked like in the past, things might be a little different. You’ll have –

John: - Now, now that said, I’m sure some of you are wondering what happened to Solas’ wig from Tevinter Nights. I’m sure he still has it somewhere, so.

Katey: He’s just taking care of it elsewhere.

John: He’s just taking care, it’s, it’s his most important possession.

Corinne: The Pride there, huh?

Katey: I have another one for Matt. This is, will we be able to, will we be able to change companions’ appearances and outfits, or are they fixed, similar to Dragon Age II?

Matt: Yeah we, Dragon Age II was, we loved how the followers turned out in that but it was, it was sad given, given our constraints that we had to keep them with just one, one basic outfit. So we really tried to make some space for them this time around. So they’re, they still have, kind’ve iconic color palettes and things like that, but they do have a wider range of appearances that you can, that you can find for them. Some, some are just cool, but then there are some that are tied directly to their, to their narrative and just kinda what’s happening in their life.

Katey: Another one for ya, which is, will we be seeing or visiting Kal-Sharok? It’s, and, Tyrant says that they’ve been obsessed with it forever.

Matt: Yeah, me too. I, I will say, what’s, what’s been really cool, so in previous games, we’ve kind’ve alluded to this before. It was a lot of fun to hint at the locations that were off the map, the mysterious places that you weren’t gonna go, you weren’t going. And so you could just bring in some props or some characters, a piece of art, things like that, and you know, even Tevinter was only vaguely hinted at and then we would just add drips and bits and pieces, so that stuff was really fun. In The Veilguard, we’re actually getting to visit, most, like a whole lot of those locations that had only been hinted at for real, so you actually do run around Tevinter and a bunch of the other locations that we’ve revealed. But this also means, like, we’re not completely filling out the map, and so that there are actually new things that we can start hinting at, that we can start drip-feeding, and so, it’s, it’s kind’ve fun. I’d say, yeah, for what we can show of Kal-Sharok, and, and other locations, it’s just, there’s, there’s more to do.

Katey: Awesome. MrFightmonster118 asks, will the dialogue wheel slash options be similar to Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda in the sense that it’s more tone-based?

John: Yeah, so, we have a number of different types of wheels in our game. All the dialogue wheels are based off the same principle. Anyone who’s played a Dragon Age game remembers what they look like. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard we have tone wheels which are, you know, again, roleplaying your character, picking consistent tone. We also have emotion wheels where you can pick specific emotional reactions. And choice wheels which are, I don’t have a strong emotional or tone tie here but I do want to make a choice based on what I do. Investigates obviously return as well, but. We do want players to understand as much as possible what it is they’re going to be picking, and understand, and again, choice and consequence is fun, we wanna make sure the choice is clear, even if, again, one of the best parts about consequence is making sure that’s not entirely clear, so.

Katey: How extensive are Rook’s decision trees for dialogue going to be with the companions and also with NPCs throughout the game?

John: Huge. I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure you have choices, we wanna make sure you can choose both your roleplaying but also choose outcomes of conversations, choose how events unfold, so, I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure that we also react to decisions you’ve made, so. For example, you may be talking to a follower who is an elf, and if you yourself are an elf, obviously you’re gonna have a different perspective on events than someone who’s not an elf. Sometimes that means different conversation options, sometimes that’s going to mean entirely deep dialogue trees, as well as based off decisions you’ve made throughout the game so, again, making sure that the game feels like it’s noticing what you’re doing is a huge part of how we’ve written out the dialogue wheel, or dialogue trees, in this game.

Corinne: Blueberry has a question for Corinne. It was mentioned that there will be, that we will be able to romance who we like. Does that mean that all companions are romanceable by all player characters regardless of race or gender, as it has been in the past?

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. So, we have talked about this in some of the interviews, I’ve seen a few articles about it, so I’d recommend everyone check out those articles. But let me just give you a quick overview. Each of the seven companions have full romance arcs and they are romanceable by all genders, absolutely. But something that’s really important to, to us on the team, so I wanna make sure that we clarify and just double-down on, that doesn’t mean playersexual. And if anyone’s unaware of what we mean by that, it doesn’t mean that they can form or twist their identities to who you the player are, like they, they won’t suddenly have a preference for men or women based on what you’re playing, right? Instead, they have their own fully fleshed-out identities, they are true and authentic to that. So in this game, they are all pansexual, with their own histories of romance. Sometimes you’ll hear about preferences, or things of that nature. And what I really love is, if you don’t pursue a romance with them, they’ll actually build their own romances with each other. So, in one of the interviews I talked about Lace Harding and Taash getting together. I give that example because honestly, it’s one of my favorites. I’m gonna put a question back to the community, though. I’ve heard we’re going with “Laash” for that ship-name? You tell me, like, what is that ship-name?

Katey: That one just rolls off the tongue, I feel like that works. This next question is from FallenArtesia. What are the markings on the faces of the elven Warden and Veil hopper?

Matt: So there’s a, quite a few, probably, I think, easily more than we’ve done before, tattoos from various, various cultures. We’re bringing the vallaslin back, of course. But there’s, yeah, ton of different options, especially when we’re, again, going into all these new regions. Each, each area has its own kind’ve visual language for that. But yeah, we are bringing the vallaslin back and then a couple of the characters have them, but we’ve kind’ve customized them a little bit, they’re a bit more specific to their personality.

Katey: And this is a question for all of you. What are you, what are you as a developer most proud of about the game, and what are you most excited for players to experience when it’s out?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question.

Corinne: Isn’t it?

John: Corinne, you wanna go first?

Corinne: Yeah, sure. Gosh. So I suspect for most of us, myself included, it is really gonna be the depth and authenticity of the companions, journeying along with them on their arcs, learning about their hardships, what they care about, being by their side, that, that authenticity is just so good. They all feel like my dear friends. But, I have to say, the closest runner-up for me, has to be the Character Creator, has to be. That Character Creator, the makeup options, the range of sliders. I’m a qunari fan, so even just the, the way you customize the horns and combine that with the really great-looking hair. Character Creator has to be my, my, like very close runner up.

Matt: Oh yeah. For me, I would say, as far as, what, what I can say I’m most proud of on this one, the, I can speak for the art team. We worked incredibly hard to make the story more visible than ever. Games are a visual medium, but, you know, it’s, sometimes it’s easier to do things in text format or written in a Codex somewhere or alluded to off-screen. But we really leaned in to trying to make sure that every design, prop, character, environment, the VFX we’re choosing, everything, all, all these choices, were putting the story on-screen so that you can really see it unfold. And I think, having worked on all of the Dragon Age games, I would say Veilguard represents one of the best attempts at that we’ve made yet.

John: I’m gonna cheat, because I’m going last and I get to do that when I go last, and kinda combine both Corinne’s and Matt’s answer. Honestly, the companions are, for me, the absolute highlight of, just, being able to work across all the disciplines, building characters who look and sound and behave in very specific and characterful ways. These are the deepest companion arcs we’ve ever done. Not just on Dragon Age, but at BioWare in general. Each, each companion has their own story arc, you can go through decisions you can make, they really do take center-stage, and I think, as you play through with them you see the care and love that the team has put into each and every one. I mean there’s, there’s moments in each arc that make you cry, make you angry, make you excited and, and the way that they integrate into the story as a whole is just, for me, something that’s been really fun. Finding ways to bring these characters together, finding ways to make this, this narrative, this story of, you know, you need to put together a team and stop the end of the world, it’s just been absolutely exciting and thrilling. And again, you see the team’s love in every single piece of it. As for what I’m most excited? For me, I’ve been, I mean Dragon Age has been part of my career, part of my life for literally the last decade and a half. I’ve worked on it since Origins and there’s something about The Veilguard that feels like a amazing mix of, novelty but also familiarity. It’s like coming home in a way that I think is going to be very exciting for people who are existing Dragon Age players, but there’s also so much here that’s just new and exciting for people, new players and old players alike. And going to parts of the word, seeing things we’ve never seen before, and just getting to take this amazing world, this amazing series and expand on it and build on it in ways that have just been, honestly, an absolute thrill, the best part of my career. And I’ve been in games for seventeen years now, this has been the absolute highlight for me, so. That’s what I’m excited about.

Corinne: John, that was, that was such a good answer, and I just, I just wanna “yes, and -” that. It, I so completely agree with you. There’ve been times in the companion arcs where even, knowing exactly what’s going to happen, we work on the game, with some of these decisions, I, I’ve had to set down the controller, let out a heavy sigh and go “oh my god, what am I gonna do here?” Yeah, the depth of them is wonderful. And, I do wanna say, I, I’d be, I wanna put this out there, when we talked about as a developer, what are we most proud of, can we just give a big shout-out to the dev team? I am so proud of them. This team has poured their heart and soul into this.

John: Absolutely.

Corinne: Anyone from BioWare who’s listening in, thank you so much, y’all are just the best.

John: Hear, hear.

Katey: I absolutely love that. I knew that question was going to have some of my best, some of my favorite answers, and it delivered, so thank you three. This one’s a fun one. Why does Varric have dark hair now? I feel like John mentioned this a little bit earlier, but.

John: Just for [inaudible].

Matt: He’s been, he’s been adventuring for a while now. His hair is, is more gray, but he’s been in very dark scenes so far, so. We’ll see him in some more contexts.

Katey: In this question, we actually took from Tumblr, because there were a few really good ones in our ask box. Will the Inquisitor be appearing in the flesh, or are we just choosing their major Dragon Age: Inquisition decisions?

Corinne: Alright! Yeah, yes! They will. The Inky does appear. We know how attached y’all are to the Inquisitor, I’ve seen the love for your OC. Yes, the Inquisitor shows up. Now, we, we’d already confirmed that in a few places, so, let me just say, you can also customize them, includes some of our new customization options, yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.

John: And I think, I think beyond that, I mean, the story of Solas and the story of the Inquisitor, obviously are tied, they’re tied together as much as any story, so. It would have been strange for us not to bring them in for this one. They have, they’re gonna be a part of the story, so.

Katey: Will there be any planned DLC? Just curious, as I always love the DLCs. Oh, and transmog armor. This one came from Lavell.

Corinne: Oh, heck yeah, good question. So, right now, our focus is entirely on the quality of the game. Like, it’s so important at this stage for us to be all-in, all attention on, just, finishing this game and delivering on the quality, the promise of it. So honestly, like, that’s all I can really say about it. We’re 100% focused on this being the most complete game we can make it. I will say, kind’ve related to that though, and I just wanna underscore this, I wanna emphasize it. There’s not gonna be any microtransactions, there’s not gonna be any battle passes, you don’t have to connect online, our focus is making this the most complete singleplayer game we possibly can. Now, this was kind’ve a two-for question, I love when we do that. Will there be transmog? Hell yeah. I’m the kind’ve player that, that believes fashion is the real end-game. Yeah, there’s a transmog system, absolutely, it’s sick.

Katey: And then this next question is from Scott. I was asking if any of the characters will be explicitly asexual, or on the ace spectrum?

Corinne: So good. Such a good question. So, look, I’m just, I’m gonna be really forthcoming with y’all and a little bit vulnerable here. I’m ace, I’m a gray-ace, I don’t mind sharing that, I’m kind’ve public with it. I will say though, that none of our companions this time around are explicitly ace. When we look at the characters, their motivations, who they are, we always assess, like is, is this the right time? This time it wasn’t. But what I will say for everyone on the ace spectrum out there, I would love to represent an ace relationship sometime in the future when it feels like the most authentic fit for a companion, when we can do it best. Oh, and I do see some questions, you know, some questions, what do we mean by ace? Asexuality. We often refer to it as the ace spectrum.

Katey: Can mage Rook do blood magic? Will blood magic be a skill tree separate from regular magic?

Corinne: Okay. Um, this gets a little spoilery, so let me just say, Rook has some pretty good reasons to avoid blood magic. Rook is not gonna want to be interested in that. But I will say, the mage skill tree is packed with all kinds of spells, traits and perks to give you a ton of flexibility in your magic. Gonna go off-script just a little bit, because –

John: Oh no.

Corinne: I’ve seen, like, can you tell us about the specializations for mage? I’m not gonna tell you the deets, but there is a necromancer one, there is an elemental one, and there is one that’s actually more of like a combat mage, it’s my favorite.

Katey: Can we name the griffon? We also have a griffon emoji now in this Discord server.

John: Excellent. So, someone on your, in your party, again, spoilers, may have already named the griffon, but, don’t worry, Assan is a very good boy, so.

Corinne: All these griffon emojis are, y’all are killing me.

Katey: Yeah, I love that, griffons in the chat. Let's see. Will we have a camp/home/headquarters that we’ll be able to customize?

Matt: Well this time around, in Inquisition you had Skyhold. In this case you have a headquarters called the Lighthouse. More to be seen on that. But, it’s, it, narratively it, it serves kind’ve a different purpose but also the same purpose. As far as customization goes, there are elements of it that change over time, and some things that you can adjust. I, I don’t know how much we’re really going into that at the moment.

Katey: This one is –

Matt: But yeah, I would say, it’s like, there’s some, it, one thing I like about it is it definitely does start to feel very much like a home over time.

Katey: Sorry for almost cutting you off there Matt. We have another very hard-hitting question, if I'm, if I do say so myself.

John: I love this one.

Katey: We need to - Same. We need to know, does pasta and noodles exist in Thedas? Thank you.

Matt: Well, and I’ll take it as a chance just to geek out about worldbuilding, because, again, we’re, The Veilguard for us is a really kinda dream opportunity to go to places that we’ve only ever heard reference to, or we’ve seen hints at. And so, in going through the worldbuilding process and trying to, trying to build these places out, not just as neat things from the IP but also as, you know, if you’ve, if you've read about this stuff, if you’ve been following along, you’ve got your own version of it in your head. You’ve imagined what it might be like, you’re, and probably hoping for something spectacular. And our brains are always far better at creating this stuff than any game developer, any artist, or anyone can really do justice to, so you really have to swing for the fences to make something very satisfying and exciting. You know, is, that can be everything as big as architecture and landscape and biomes and ecosystems, but it does get into things like art and culture, costume design, and also food, and this time around we did, you know, that was one of the many things that we, that we did, looking to, just to try to catch the character and the feel of a place to make it feel believable and lived in, so. That’s my really long answer for, yeah, I’m sure, I've, at least one place does have pasta.

Katey: I loved that. This next question is from Spectre Karro. Are we getting a mabari?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question. I will say, you’re spending most of the game in the north of Thedas. Mabari are not nearly as big of a thing up there, so. In this particular instance, no, you will not get a mabari, sadly.

Katey: Honestly, I should’ve pulled this one up to where we answered the first question about the griffon, but, can we pet the griffon?

Matt: You, I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you – nah, I’m kidding, yes you can. But it’s not even just petting the griffon. I’ve, this isn’t a spoiler, I think you can actually, I’ve actually hugged the griffon, so, that feels like, even there, a step up. Yeah.

John: There’s lots of opportunities to interact with the griffon.

Corinne: Can we see, can we see Assan in chat if we wanna see him in the Lighthouse hanging out?

Katey: Assan in chat everybody.

Corinne: Assan in chat, alright!

Katey: I love it.

Corinne: Okay, y’all this was so important to the team too. Like, this is the team’s like, just such huge support for this feature, so props to them.

Katey: This one is from Coriander. Will we get to see any of the Character Creator before the game releases?

Corinne: Yes, yes you will. We’ve got a, you’ve probably seen, we’re laying out a roadmap for, you know, what we’re gonna show and when we’re gonna talk about, so, yes you will see it as we get a little bit closer to launch.

Katey: And then we’ve got this question which is, will we be able to play as a qunari, dwarf, elf, or human?

Corinne: Hell yeah, hell yeah you will. All four, and all four have that full-body customization. I already talked a little bit about, I mean listen, I’ve always loved the qunari. I will say in Dragon Age: Inquisition it was hard to get a good-looking qunari hairstyle, so yes you can play as them, you can customize them, the horn options are rad, the hair options are rad. And also, I guess related to this, your lineage gives you a lot of really unique dialogue options, so that’s a really lovely aspect of choosing your lineage as well.

John: Yeah, I would, so to actually just to bounce off that, to an earlier question about backgrounds, each lineage, there, depending on the lineage you choose and the background you choose there are some specifics call-outs to, for example, if it’s the Mourn Watch, the Mourn Watch being a faction from Nevarra of mages, you play as a dwarf, obviously your experience in that faction is going to be different than, say, a human or an elf, so. There are also specific call-outs tailored to those combinations and, with again, giving, the intention of giving each lineage their own little flavor as to how they're, they fit into that faction as a whole.

Katey: Okay, John, I’ve got a question from someone named Joe for you. Where is Barkspawn and is he okay?

John: That’s a Great question. Barkspawn is safely gnawing on a bone next to a fireplace somewhere in Ferelden, don’t worry, he’s fine. You may question, ask yourself, but John, it’s been so long, in which I say, mabari live exactly as long as they need to.

Corinne: Getting into the deep-cut questions now.

John: Deep-cut questions, yeah.

Katey: Yeah. We are really speedin’ through these. Let’s see. Will Rook have a set of default name?

John: Yeah so, Rook’s last name is defined based on their faction, again, we wanted to tie that into your backstory, but also, there’s a, that’s a name generator that can give you a selection of first names. Obviously if you want to make your own first name, that’s definitely something we support as well. If you’re somebody who maybe has a little bit more difficulty coming up with a name, so for example you name every single character “Bob” because that’s the only name you can think of, we also give that opportunity for that generation, so.

Katey: I definitely always have trouble coming up with what I wanna name my characters, so that’s great. This next question is, when will the voice acting cast be announced?

John: So, we worked with a lot of very talented actors on this one. I am super excited to talk about the voice acting cast. We’ll be talking a bit more over the summer, we’re not quite ready to announce names yet.

Katey: And I think we have a similar answer to this next question, which was, will there be a Collector’s Edition? When can I pre-order?

John: Yeah, same answer, we have, we’ll talk more about the different editions of the game soon.

Katey: Are there any special musical guests writing the sound-track? Will tavern songs return.

Corinne: Oh my goodness, yeah. There are tavern songs. And huge credit to the audio team and performance teams because they’re pretty great. There’s one in a little tavern in Minrathous called The Swan, and the song you hear there might just, it might be, it’s up there, it might just be my favorite of the tavern songs.

Katey: Let’s see, are there any – ope, I have just asked that one. What are the required PC specs?

John: Much like the other two, we will have more information on required PC specs soon.

Katey: Saph from the Discord server noticed that two, Dragon Age II’s main theme from the soundtrack brought back much of the iconic thematic material of Origins’ main theme, but I heard less of it in Inquisition’s. Can we expect The Veilguard’s main theme to recall more or less of that original thematic material than Inquisition?

John: So we’re not, we’re not quite ready to talk about music yet in specifics, but in broad strokes I can say the process for us is always the same. Working with the composer, working, figuring out themes, figuring out what kinds of elements we want to keep, tying specific elements to, maybe specific characters. It’s a really in-depth process and a really collaborative process. We have some fantastic audio people on our team that have done an amazing work, amazing job, working with composers, and, with the team as a whole to make sure that, again, we said earlier about cohesiveness. Making sure that the music feels like a cohesive part of the experience.

Katey: And this one, I see is also for John, but I think anyone can answer this. When writing the overall story of this game, what themes did you want to have as the prominent focus?

John: I mean again, it’s interesting, so it’s interesting, because when we were writing these games, and this has been true on every Dragon Age I’ve been part of, what you start with and where you end up aren’t always necessarily the same. Sometimes you start writing out a theme, you realize actually it’s more interesting if we attack from this angle, or maybe if we twist it a little bit. I will say for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, from the beginning one of the biggest themes has been regret. How regret’s shaped peoples’ lives, how people deal with their regrets, how people maybe move past their regrets and, each of the characters, you know, the stories as a whole, have elements of this tied throughout. We really wanted to have that thematic, that cohesiveness to the game’s story and the game’s writing so.

Katey: And I know that, you know, we’ve, we've kind’ve already answered this a few times, but can we play as dwarves and does the world react to your race and backstory? Probably be good to just directly answer that one.

John: Yes you can play as a dwarf. Yes the world does react to your race and backstory. And, again, you’ll have unique dialogues or unique conversation options based on that, on that backstory and as well as that race.

Corinne: I’ll give you a little nugget here, because I saw it scrolling through real quickly. Do you have beards, like. So when I think about can I play as dwarves I think about, do we have glorious fantastic beards? Hell yeah, we do.

John: Yeah, I can say, as somebody who plays a lot of games with character creator, the beards on, I don’t know what magic the character art team did for the beards, but they feel like a beard should feel like, it’s great. They look awesome.

Corinne: Just saw somebody say “it’s beard time”, I love it. It’s beard time!

Katey: Will our heroes and companions leave us if we go against their wishes?

Corinne: Oh my good – do y’all just love pain? Do you want us to make you cry? If you go against their wishes, if you make decisions they don’t like, I will tell you, you can piss them off, you can, they might not agree with you and they, they will take some time away. That said, this is the biggest threat to Thedas we’ve ever seen, so they’re, they are always gonna be willing to show up to defend Thedas but, yeah, you can piss them off and they’ll leave for a minute. As it relates to them showing up to defend Thedas, well yeah, they will, unless…

John: No spoilers Corinne!

Corinne: Aughhh, I’ll leave it there, I’ll leave it there.

John: No spoilers.

Corinne: Okay, alright, alright. But they want it!

John: Yep.

Matt: Don’t try to stop me, Smee!

Katey: This one’s a fun one about some inspirations for the game. Dracanmo would like to know if any songs, books, movies or anything have had inspired any of the writing for the characters?

John: I mean, honestly, the thing about art is, art is always a synthesis of your own experiences both in the real world but also the art you consume, the art you pay attention to. I don’t think that any characters have what I would describe as, this character was a direct reference or direct inspiration but, I mean, yeah, they’re all inspired by the things that we do, the things, both, again, in the real world, and also in the media we consume. And you’re gonna see elements of characters that, yeah, the things that we’ve enjoyed, the things that’ve shaped us, show up in these characters. I think, for me, it’s, it comes down to, and I, I, writing is a deeply, can be a deeply personal experience, so even if you don’t intend for it to be the case, things, parts of you are going to show up in your character, I think that’s true for all the characters in The Veilguard. And, you know, sometimes it’s, exploring, exploring the, y’know, things that, about yourself that you may like or may not like, and it’s also about exploring things about characters that you like or don’t like, so. That’s kinda my long-winded way of saying yes, it’s impossible to not have that happen when you’re creating art. But I wouldn’t say that there’s one where you can say, oh this is this character, this is this character.

Katey: What was the thinking process behind making Harding a companion this time around? Was she always going to be one or did it evolve into one because she was such a lovable character?

John: Ohh, yeah. So Harding, I mean. When we released Inquisition, it was impossible not to see the love that people had for our murderous girl next door dwarf. She’s always been a fan favorite obviously, but I think beyond that, it’s something that there, that Harding’s writer wanted to explore. There was more of a story to tell there, more perspective, and beyond that, Harding obviously has a strong connection to Solas, and to the, to Varric, and to the events of the past ten years, so. I wouldn’t say it’s always been, but I’d say Harding’s probably one of the first ones we settled on as like, yes, this is a character we want and the writer had a story that they wanted to tell with her, so, it just made sense.

Matt: You know, I think actually, to piggyback on that, that’s something I hadn’t really even thought about that much, but, and it’s not a huge part of her character, but, she tends to be one of the people that have the most insight into he was.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly it, that’s exactly, and yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it too. It also provides you with a little bit of that, that perspective. For players who’ve been around, you know, who played with previous Dragon Age games, but also for new ones, who was Solas? What kind of character was, was he?

Matt: Yeah.

John: Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great, using characters to provide windows onto the world is honestly one of my favorite things.

Matt: And, and when I say was, I just mean, in Inquisition.

John: Yes, that’s, that’s exactly it, yes. Thank you for correcting that.

Matt: Yeah.

Katey: And what approach are you taking to quest and world design in The Veilguard?

John: I think for us it just comes down to relevance and narrative heft. We want to make sure that each quest provides either a perspective on the world or perspective on the characters, or feels immediately and obviously relevant to what you’re, what you’re doing here. You’re here to save the world and, again, at the end of the day, one of the things that we heard, we heard loud and clear, was some feedback about how relevant, or in this, in our case, not relevant, previous quests have felt, so for Veilguard, we really wanted to make sure that these quests felt like something that you, somebody faced with the end of the world would believe was necessary and important. So, again, there’s quests of all sorts and sizes, but all of them share that same feeling of, this is the kind of thing that The Veilguard would do. This is the kind’ve thing that my hero would do, especially faced with the end of the world.

Corinne: Yeah, that’s, that’s really good John. That’s so right. I would just, again, double-down on how hand-crafted all the quests are, and whether, whether you’re doing, like, the main story, or you’re journeying with your companions, or you’re out exploring and you encounter a mystery. Everything’s handcrafted, intentional. We spent a lot of time listening to what y’all said, and of course everyone has slightly different tastes, but, you know, you’re not gonna be gathering shards in the Hinterlands. Everything is built with intention, and, you know, a dev there lovingly handcrafting the experience.

Katey: Are there any locations in the game that can only be accessed by making specific story choices?

John: So I don’t wanna get too much into spoilers here because this does start getting into spoiler detail, but I will say that locations can fundamentally change based on decisions you make. Some of the parts of the world that you go to, you can have, the decision, the choices you make have an impact on how these spaces exist and develop, so, yeah, and again, don’t wanna too many into, into story spoilers, but, your decisions do impact how the world shows up.

Katey: And will we be able to control our companions in combat through tactical mode, or if the PC, or player character, gets KO’d, like in previous games?

Corinne: Right, so. If Rook gets KO’d, your player character gets knocked out, this time around it is time to re-load your save, or better yet, the companions have really interesting progression, you can spec them out to be able to revive you, but that’s, that’s if you’ve invested in their own progression and what they can do. And that said, I, I mentioned this earlier but I, I personally spend more time in the nature of this combat system when everything comes together, interacting and directing the companions than I have in any of the other games, so, like, like that, that interactivity between them, once you play it you’ll see how, just engaged the team is.

Katey: A user named It’s Sarah said, my real most important Dragon Age question is, will Solas still occasionally or dramatically speak in iambic pentameter?

John: You know, I was, I actually spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if I wanted to answer this question in iambic pentameter and then I very quickly gave up. Massive kudos to Patrick who, who always writes Solas so well. Again, Solas is a returning character, it’s the same Solas you know and love, or hate, depending on who you are. Same writer, so, I think, this has been, the answer is, well of, yeah, it’s Solas.

Katey: Will our decision of who in particular was left behind in the Fade be important?

John: So, while that decision does not show up, that – sorry, let me, restart. Not for The Veilguard. That decision doesn’t show up here. Now, that said, that doesn’t mean that’s that’s not a decision that will ever be important in the future, so. Again, not for this one, though.

Matt: I’m glad to hear you say that, John, because one of my favorite stories was Bob getting stuck in the web in reboot and it just feels like -

John: That’s a, that’s a deep cut!

Corinne: Very, that’s a deep cut.

John: Holy smokes.

Corinne: My goodness.

John: The sound of my childhood.

Katey: Will we have mounts again? If so, any hints to what types we’ll have?

Matt: So no, no, mounts, excuse me. Mounts were, they were, they addressed a need in Inquisition that we don’t have in Veilguard, and you’ll see why, when you get to play.

Katey: LightningStar asks, how is the side quest design? Will they be mostly story-based, or will there be a lot of radiant quests or resources or Power, like in Inquisition?

John: We talked about it a little bit earlier, but, no, they are all hand-crafted and story-focused. Again, narrative, the companions, not just the companions but the characters in the world as a whole are so much at the core of The Veilguard that, anything other than hand-crafted quests just felt like it would be a disservice to the game we were building.

Corinne: Yeah. And maybe, we can clarify as well, because, like Power was such a divisive mechanic in Inquisition. There’s no mechanic like that that blocks your progression until you fill a bar, right, like that’s just not a thing in this. You have the autonomy to engage in these, these quests as you like. There’s no, like, y'know, grind-out gates before you can progress.

John: That’s right, yeah. Again, we wanna make sure that, again, that doing this content feels as natural and part of the logical flow of the story as possible.

Katey: So, it looks like we only have time for three more questions, so I’m going to get through those. With this next one, is from someone named Jason. Will there be a similar system to the War Table missions?

Corinne: Ooh, interesting. So, we haven’t talked much about the player’s base, the Lighthouse. And we’re gonna save that for a beat, but what I will say is that the Lighthouse, your headquarters so to speak, it has its own unique purposes and functions this time. So that’s an area that we’ll, we’ll leave for you when we talk more about the Lighthouse, and then when you have a chance to hop in, you’ll be able to see what those unique purposes and functions are.

Katey: If there is dual-wield for warriors, will it rely on dexterity or strength?

Corinne: Ah, okay, yeah, yeah. So we did wanna bring dual-wielding back. It is part of the rogue kit this time. So warriors are really focused on mighty two-handed weapons, can’t wait til you see, when you swing and connect with those weapons, there’s, there’s a real heft to it. And then of course sword and shield, so. We’re leaving the dual-wielding to the rogues, but you, you can see just, the amount of hits you can get in in rapid succession dual-wielding as a rogue is really satisfying.

Katey: And the last question that we’re able to get to today, is, what have been some of the challenges and advantages of working on a single, on a single game for so many years? How did you sustain the work in yourselves and the process?

John: That is a fantastic question. I will say for myself, I’ve often joked, and I don’t know how much of a joke it actually is, that when this game is out and I suddenly don’t have to keep all these pieces of game and lore and story and everything straight in my head, I’m suddenly gonna be able to speak Latin or something because there’s gonna be a ton of brainpower freed up. But for me it’s just, you know, it's, the thing that keeps me sustained is just knowing the game that we’re building is the right one. Knowing that the beats are coming together, and knowing just how much people care about this franchise, care about these games, and how excited people are going to be when they get to see the fantastic work that the team has, has been doing. And that really is, I can say, I’ve been on this project since the start, and even today, I see things on a daily basis, I’m like holy – smokes, sorry, I almost swore, I can’t believe what the team is doing, I can’t believe the, how good this looks, I can’t believe. Because it’s a huge game. There’s pieces that I, I don’t see every piece of the game every day so, I get pleasantly surprised on a daily basis and that, I will say, you know, confession, sometimes if I’m having a particularly long day, I’ll spend about an hour late at night just watching cutscenes coming in, watching the work coming together and just, sitting back and being like, holy smokes, I cannot wait for someone who hasn’t seen this every day for so long as I have to experience this and just be blown away by the work, so.

Corinne: It's, it’s been very real, hasn’t it? And, and I will just say, speaking on behalf of the dev team, everyone’s working so hard, they’re putting so much passion, so much of themselves into it. Like this is a franchise they truly love, and seeing your support, cheering us on, it’s just meant a lot to them, so, let me just say thank you to all of you.

Katey: And I wanna say thank you to you three for taking the time to do this. I know that it matters a lot to the community to be able to, you know, get some time with you guys and, you know, make sure that some of their dying questions are, are answered, so thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this. For anyone who’s still listening I promise that I’m that I’m working on a way for these questions to be immortalized somewhere. Stay tuned for that so that you don’t have to worry about this, just, you know, disappearing into the ether. So, stay tuned, thank you all for your time. Anything else we wanna say before we jump off?

Matt: Thanks everyone.

John: Thank you. Yeah, I’m super excited to show more of this and, yeah, this is gonna be, hopefully this is the first of many of these opportunities to talk to you all directly. Again, it’s been a while, and getting to talk about this game has been absolutely exciting. I know for myself, as well for the rest of the team, so thank you all.

Corinne: Just thank you, it’s, the Dragon Age community, how much it means to you, how much it means to us, it’s just wonderful to see you all so invested and excited to come here and talk to us. Thank you again, truly.

Katey: We'll hopefully do something like this again soon. Okay, cool, have a great day everybody! Talk soon!

John: Bye y’all!

Matt: Bye.

[source: The dev BioWare Discord Q&A on June 14th]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #solas #feels #lgbtq+#1k+

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miru667 · 1 year ago

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The whole Once-ler family is working full tilt!

Here's my full piece for the VK Onceler Zine! I was very lucky to get to be a part of it...🥹 I used concept art as my inspiration this time: [link] Keep reading below for my process vid and all my director's commentary!

Thank you for being curious! Here's a video of my WIPs:

Deadlines were TIGHT for this zine! We were given only 2 months (compared to the 6 months I had on the previous onceler zine), so to make sure I could finish on time, I decided to do only base colours and lighting, with almost no shading anywhere. Still, trying to balance all the colours took the longest for me, as you can see in the vid. xP

Also idk if anyone noticed, but for the face I chose to use an already existing onceler doodle: [link] Why? Well, why not! I really liked that doodle and I didn't want it to go to waste. 😆

Things that I enjoyed sneaking in:

-the golden spiral! Vaguely, at least! At the very least I hope your eyes can follow the order of thneed production, from the fallen tree at the window to the tuft harvesting to the thread spinning, to knitting the thneed and then drawing up plans for bigger and better things, and then ending with him pulling on his iconic glove to show he's going to take control now

-15 cents, a nail, and a great great great grandfather snail, as well as a tin pail since that's where you're supposed to deposit your payment

-combining things from the 2012 movie and concept art, the 1972 movie, and the 1971 book (e.g. that funny wrench he uses to fix pipes)

-Miss O'Schmunce-ler! You can see from the vid that I added the bracelet pretty late, because it was a late decision to have a Miss O'Schumunce-ler somewhere. I chose her to be the one picking up the pencil in the end, since she's pretty good with a pencil in the movie hehe. You guys can pretend the arms holding the phone is Miss Funce-ler.

-a thneed, a seed, and a (grickle grass) weed on the floor. The thneed is just the first of many that will soon create a giant pile. The seed lies forgotten in the corner. The weed is foreshadowing the future.

-hinting that Lorax and Once-ler were actually good friends, like they were in the Lorax musical stageplay. 🥺 I kept this part of the script in my mind for this piece:

This was aftermath Once-ler talking to the Lorax, reminiscing on their good times...and also being stupid and inconsiderate because the Lorax was in fact there all along as his friend, trying to warn him of what was going to happen. 😔

So in my zine piece we're witnessing a peaceful time before all the real biggering really starts. I like to think that in this scene, the Lorax had been sitting on the Once-ler's lap, holding his gloves for him and having a nice chat together with maybe some harmless bickering, but then the Once-ler gets a phone call so he cuts their convo short and rolls his chair over to the window to answer it. Putting business over friendship as usual, of course. Inspo for the lap sitting comes from this fanart by Emi that I love: [link]

What else...the parts that I'm proud of the most are the stool (I spent 2 days just drawing this stool), the curtains, the fact that I was able to include every truffula colour, and the Once-ler's pose. I was close to giving up on that pose because I had no idea how to draw it but I'm glad that I tried again. I wanted to show him at ease during a stage in his life that we never got to see much: the happier and more innocent days of his biggering when he only had a small shop. 😊

That's all, I think! Thanks for reading if you did! Once again it was an honour to be part of this zine!!

#onceler zine #miru art #onceler #the lorax #lorax #thneed #artists on tumblr #truffula #truffula tree #truffula trees #zine

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svsssbrainworms · 9 months ago

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🍃 SVSSS fic rec list

(shen yuan / bingqiu -centric edition) 2/3

[ shen twins; canon divergence/time travel ]

shen twins

• second-hand alibis

“All right. I’m in Proud Immortal Demon Way," he says, once he's had a chance to compose himself again. He sits back up, tossing his stupidly long hair back over his shoulders where it belongs; he is totally calm and ready to grill the System for more information. "Who am I supposed to be? "Please please please don't let it be someone who Bingge violently murders. Though given the fact that he's a man in PIDW, his chances are already skewed, and not in his favor. Ugh. [Bound Role: Shen Yuan, Rogue Cultivator. Weapon: the sword Heng Li. Starting B-points: 100.] or: Shen Yuan transmigrates as a rogue cultivator, one completely unconnected to any canon characters or events. Right, System? Right?

• Wherever You Go, I Will Follow (The Scum Villain Early Intervention System)

Something goes a little sideways and Shen Yuan accidentally transmigrates into Proud Immortal Demon Way as a shitty, System-generated self-insert OC. At first, his goals are simple: survive, discover the world, and maybe even become a cultivator! It all seems to be working out alright. That is, until he discovers that there is more to his new identity than he previously thought: Shen Yuan has a twin, and it's none other than the future scum villain, Shen Qingqiu! As such, their fates have been inevitably linked together. The world is a dark place. Will they be able to make it through?

canon divergence 🦋 / time travel 🕰

🦋 • the pale morning sings of forgotten things

Mu Qingfang offers him a small bronze mirror. Shen Qingqiu takes it—evidently there’s no more putting this off. He looks into the mirror. A teenager, his hair and robes askew, his face streaked with blood, stares dully back at him. Ah, he realizes. Beneath the blood, half of it smeared across his face as though he had started to wipe it away at one point, he looks to be in his middling-to-late teens. Probably around seventeen or maybe eighteen— Pain stabs deep in his chest. That’s how old Luo Binghe is.Was. or: at the edge of the Abyss, Shen Qingqiu has a qi deviation. When he wakes, he finds he has lost far more than he can bear--or than he realizes.

🦋 • fuel the embers with the flames of your soul

Trapped in Huan Hua’s Water Prison, Shen Yuan’s illness from his previous life relapses.

🦋 • Sung From the Ashes

Things go decidedly worse in the water prison as everyone underestimates just how much Lao Gongzhu hates Shen Qingqiu. Now Shen Yuan has to figure out how to live in the aftermath of his experiences while Luo Binghe finds more and more ways to self-destruct. They'll meet in the middle someday if Gongyi Xiao has anything to say on the matter.

🦋 • Inappropriate Use May Result in Strange Side Effects

In PIDW, there was a certain legendary cup which when used to make tea with even a single thread of another’s hair or a drop of their blood switches bodies with the person who drank it. It turns out… if you don’t use it appropriately it’ll either not work at all because it has no target, or will swap you with your soul mate. Too bad Luo Binghe had no idea about that. He was just going to drink tea and somehow he found himself in Shen Qingqiu’s body, staring at his own sword mound. Oh and what the absolute hell is the ringing in his ear?

🦋 • Separate Ways

There are plenty of skills one can pick up in the Endless Abyss if curious or just desperate enough. The shape changing had been explained as being able to look like other people. This isn’t what happens when Luo Binghe tries it. What happens is that he’s transformed into a tiny dog with masses of curly black fur. When he catches his reflection while transformed, his first thought is, Shizun would definitely want to pet me. (Or, the one where Luo Binghe can turn into a dog, infiltrates Qing Jing, and seeks Shizun's affections through fluffy subterfuge)

🦋 • Dreaming of Gardens in the Desert Sand

Huan Hua Palace master Luo Binghe never thought there'd be any reason to worry about the master that threw him away all those years ago. Surely, he was safe and cared for by the martial siblings he'd so thoroughly enamored. Luo Binghe was wrong. (Or, the one where the Jinlan City event doesn't happen and Luo Binghe's plan to slowly show he can be a righteous cultivator actually goes as he expected, with consequences he did not)

🕰 • Metagaming

[Self-Saving System Activated! You will be now returned to your original starting position.] Shen Qingqiu dies and gets a second chance and decides to try a different approach.

🦋 • Shen Yuan's Forced Shen Qingqiu Redemption Arc

The System's OOC function won't unlock all at once - instead, character traits have to be added individually, through quests. This leads to Shen Qingqiu having to jump through endless hoops just to complete enough side quests to unlock the ability to be a decent person - all while avoiding the effects it has on those around him. If only the cheapskate System wouldn't keep changing the cost of point values - he needs to know what the hell Yue Qingyuan told the others about him that makes them all look so sad when he does manage to be nice! He's breaking his back here, can't we just appreciate his work?!

🦋 • If You Don't Have Store-Bought Character Growth, Homemade is Fine

When Shen Qingqiu fails his first mission, he loses the opportunity to unfreeze the OOC function. He has to go through the events of the story in-character as the original goods. He's definitely getting human sticked. Meanwhile, Luo Binghe is getting paranoid that his Shizun has started being nice to him. In a really mean way.

🦋 • In Durance Veil

Right, the villain's beautiful daughter, who had caught a glimpse of the Protagonist from afar and, naturally, fell madly in love at first sight. She'd used her knowledge of her father's lair to sneak into the dungeon where Luo Binghe was being held and eventually proved the key to his escape, betraying her father for love. "So, you want to try to find some random girl who's willing to sneak in past the guards to Luo Binghe's prison and..." "What random girl could we possibly trust? I'll do it myself!" "You know what," Shang Qinghua said. "Somehow I feel like I should have expected this." --- Shen Qingqiu self-detonated at Hua Yue City, but he didn't die. Instead, he wakes up to a world where Cang Qiong is victorious and Luo Binghe has been imprisoned beneath the mountain. What's a poor transmigrator to do? He has to find a way to free the Protagonist before he breaks out and razes the Sect to the ground! Clearly, the best way to do this is to pretend to be one of Luo Binghe's future wives. Clearly.

🦋 • Into the Abyss

In which Shen Yuan pisses the System off and it sends him straight into the Endless Abyss. Four years later, Shen Qingqiu does the same to Luo Binghe.

🦋 • Bamboo Shoot of Resentment

Falling prey to an unusual curse after the Immortal Alliance Conference was the last thing Shen Yuan expected from this dumpster fire of a porn novel. But here the transmigrator is — inflicted with a demonic womb he absolutely did not ask for, and a new burden he didn’t even think was possible. And maybe, Shen Yuan is just a bit tired of it all.

🦋 • He Was Made For Untidy Rooms and Rumpled Beds

Shen Qingqiu kind of, sort of, does not have the same modesty standards as a xianxia novel set in some form of Ancient China? He also hates the heat, who knew right?

🕰 • Wish Received, Wish Granted!

Luo Binghe aches so raw and violently in a way he hasn’t known since the Endless Abyss, since the scalding heat of tea on his scalp, or the sight of his mother’s tired and motionless form in her bed. Images of that other reality sear themselves into the forefront of his mind, plaguing him even when he shuts and scrubs at his eyes till they hurt. He feels the ghost of Shen Qingqiu’s gentle touch on his skin like a persistent burning sensation, flames of longing licking at the nape of his neck. He wants it. He hates it. He needs it. Or Luo Binghe (aka Bingge), because he’s the protagonist, gets his wish granted the moment he wakes on the cold floor of the woodshed, beaten black and blue, and fourteen again.

🕰 • A Transmigrator and a Time Traveler Walk Into the Bamboo House

Over a year after Shen Qingqiu's death, Luo Binghe consults his servant's servant, concurrently his disgraced martial uncle, for a way to bring the love of his life back. Shang Qinghua sends him in the direction of a certain time-traveling artifact, which supposedly brings one to the day they first met their soulmate. Odd, though, that the artifact ends up missing the destination by just a few years… - A story in which post-Abyss Luo Binghe relives his disciple days, while juggling his secrets, traumas, and some unexpected revelations about the man he loves on top of that.

🦋 • The More You Don't Know

Luo Binghe has it all: the respect of the cultivation world, the home he always wanted, and Shizun's love. There's just one problem: if Shizun ever finds out he's a demon, it's going to ruin everything.

🦋 • grief, hope, and other forms of sickness

After the Immortal Alliance Conference, Shen Qingqiu qi deviates. The deviation itself isn’t bad, but it allows Without-A-Cure to spread far further than it did originally, disabling Shen Qingqiu by a non-insignificant amount. So when Huan Hua calls for Shen Qingqiu’s imprisonment in Jinlan City, Without-A-Cure makes it very clear that Shen Qingqiu can not be held in the Water Prison away from the medical attention he needs these days. Instead, Shen Qingqiu is allowed to return to Qing Jing, provided he takes Luo Binghe back with him.

🦋 • Celestial Afterglow

Shang Qinghua, also known as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, stared flatly at what had once been a field boasting near sect-level Feng Shui alignment, and the drowned, bloated remains of the Sun and Moon Dew Flower cuttings that had sprouted within it. Their plan was now quite literally a wash. If only he could consult Cucumber Bro on how to save Cucumber Bro! But in the absence of Cucumber Bro, he could but rely on the one plot coupon the infamous Peerless Cucumber had ever applauded.

🦋 • I Want You To Be Happier

Shen Yuan has amnesia. Good thing his husband is there to take care of him! - Following a failed attempt to detonate his core in order to save Luo Binghe at Huayue City, Shen Qingqiu instead suffers a qi deviation and loses his memory. Luo Binghe, in turn, loses his shit and steals him away for awhile.

🦋 • fall for your reflection (drown in a dream)

“Shh, Shizun, it’s alright,” Luo Bingge says, voice lilting in a singsong manner. Shen Qingqiu can’t look away from his red, red eyes. He blinks, and they aren’t eyes at all, but feathers, perched on a mound of coiled, shifting vines that are dotted with white thorns dyed their own bright red from Shen Qingqiu’s blood. “Go to sleep, Shizun,” the black-and-red bird sings, coaxing. “Go to sleep,” Luo Bingge repeats, as he flickers back into being. or: Shen Qingqiu is attacked by a monster that drops him into a dream of a perfect world--with Luo Binghe featuring front and center.

🦋 • Medical Diplomacy

Fresh out of the Abyss, Luo Binghe learns that he alone can cure Shen Qingqiu's chronic ailment. With this information in hand, he pursues an alternative strategy involving interspecies diplomacy and a royal alliance. After all, Cang Qiong can't expect a gentleman to dual-cultivate outside of marriage.

#svsss #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #shen jiu #luo binghe #bingqiu #svsss fic

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sun-and-flames · 3 months ago

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A Rising Dawn - Chapter 6

Mydei x (female) Reader

Fic Rating: Mature (will change for chapter 7)

Chapter Length: 3.5k

Fic Status: Ongoing (6/8)

Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Falling in Love, Learning to Trust, Sweet, Wholesome, basically no angst, no use of y/n, smut in chapter 7, set before the events of 3.0

Author’s Notes: Thank you all so much for your lovely feedback on the fic and last chapter especially! It makes my day to see that you're enjoying the fic so much <3

Previous Chapter

AO3 Link

Summary: In the Holy City, daily life remained the same for the citizens despite the threat of the Black Tide lurking beyond the city’s borders.

But sometimes, a brief encounter can bring about a new dawn for its residents. Chrysos Heirs and regular citizens alike.

Even more so when the Golden Thread has tied your fates together a long time ago.

You made it a habit to establish this physical contact with Mydei whenever you met. Reaching for his hand, holding it to your face - something about it was so tender and soothing, even if it was only you who initiated it - and allowing yourself to feel.

Naturally, encounters on the street or at the store did not allow for such things. Neither did it give you the chance to do it at your own pace and for how long you wanted nor were you comfortable with people - crowds - around you.

You couldn’t imagine Mydei took pleasure in that either.

Though, the store did grant you some opportunities. At least whenever you took care of his order, it allowed you to brush his hands when handing him his fruits or taking his payments.

Little steps, little successes for you. For with each of these moments you felt the trembling ceasing, your hesitation fading. And the feeling left behind - once the anxiety has vanished - engulfed your heart in a warmth and tingling sensation that made you forget about the rocky road to get here.

It also made you look forward to any future meeting with him.

How did it get to this point?

It felt like you both missed an important conversation about what was going on. But then, you really didn’t know either and were just seeing - trying - where this was leading you to.

Maybe… Mydei had no clue either.

You shook your head as you made your way to the training grounds. It’s been a few days. Mydei has been occupied with his duties and although you have seen him from afar in the city, he wasn’t lingering, wasn’t wasting time, so you didn’t approach him.

You gave him time and space just as he was and…

… you knew he would approach you eventually once time permitted.

You smiled to yourself. That was why you were on your way to the training grounds now after all. In the Early Hour today he had approached the store, buying pomegranates and letting you know he’d be available if you were free after work.

How eagerly you had agreed…

The kids haven’t approached you today, they attended another class organized by Lady Tribios, so that gave you ample time.

Mydei was waiting for you already when the training grounds came into view. He stood in the middle of the small fighting area, arms crossed in front of his chest as he gazed into the distance, contemplating, lost in thought. Kephale’s light in the beginnings of the Parting Hour flooded the training grounds dimmer than before, though still as bright as the sun. It caught the tips of his hair and reflected off the accessories he wore until you believed Kephale himself made him shine.

Your heart skipped a beat at the sight.

You adjusted the basket hanging from your elbow and approached him. He acknowledged and greeted you with a nod and watched as you placed the basket on the wall, the same spot as usual as you noticed yourself in that moment.

Huh… Coming here really has become a habit at this point.

“How was your mission, Mydei?” you asked once you stepped onto the training field and retrieved a training sword from the shelves at its sidelines.

“More Titankin have attempted to get closer to the city,” he replied and got a sword like you. A silent agreement to continue your training. “We’ve got rid of them for now. But until we know why their numbers have increased in such proximity to the city guards and patrols have been increased.”

“Is Okhema in danger?”

“Mmph,” he huffed, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Your question clearly amused him.

“There are still two demigods in the city. And I will not leave either.”

There were implications there. Hidden within his words. Yet, you couldn’t decipher them or didn’t want to be hopeful when you still had no idea whatever it was between the two of you.

Still, he was right. Lady Aglaea and Tribios were still in the city. There was no safer place in Amphoreus than Okhema.

You took your place in front of him, a safe distance between you, and raised your sword, your stance like he has shown you before.

Mydei didn’t take a stance. Instead he turned the sword in his hand - you tried not to stare at the way his fingers moved around the hilt - and looked at you as if contemplating something.

“Ready for the next step?”

“Huh?” you looked at him in question, the tension in your body slackening for a moment.

A moment long enough that you almost didn’t manage to react on time.

A whirl of colors and the dull sound of wood clashing and you felt yourself being pushed backwards. You slid over the ground as if it was polished stone.

Only when you came to a halt and the blood rushing in your ears calmed down did you get a moment to assess whatever just happened.

Mydei stood where you’ve stood before, but the distance between you remained the same. And only when you saw how he lowered the sword - a smirk playing at the corners of his lips - and you spotted the trail you left behind in the granular ground as you were sliding backwards, did you register that Mydei has pushed you backwards.

That was hardly all his strength - didn’t come close - but he still never used enough pressure to push you back like this.

Alright, you got the message.

Still, you couldn’t ignore the spark of pride igniting within you. Him wanting to use more of his strength, push you further in your training must mean you have been improving. You have gotten better and the realization of it brought a wave of determination with it.

You adjusted your stance again.

“I’m ready.”

———————

You have improved.

As your swords clashed he didn’t deny that. Your arms still shook from the impact - sometimes holding back didn’t come easy and rendered his blows still too strong - and you were still defending rather than attempting to push back, but beyond that he could see the improvements, even if you perhaps didn’t register them yet yourself.

Your stance remained more balanced, the tension in your body more controlled. The reason you managed to remain on your feet before the match began when he had pushed you back.

Not enough progress to truly keep up with him - aside from that Deliverer no one could - but even such small steps could make the difference between life and death in a real battle.

Your weapons clashed again as you managed to block another blow from him, but the sound you let out - strained and through clenched teeth - didn’t escape him. He took you in. Exhaustion was written all over you. Your gaze, your posture, the strength behind your movements…

“Giving up?” he asked. Taunted you.

“No, I can do this.”

His lips curved upwards into a smile. Content. Proud. But he saw right through you. Your arms trembled, beads of sweat formed on your skin, and with each passing moments your sword rested heavier in your hands.

He indulged you for a while longer. Pushed you beyond your limits. But as he watched how you took a step back to evade his range after blocking another blow, he decided to end it.

You couldn’t raise the sword anymore, you attempted to avoid clashing with him. You stood no chance to last another attack from him. Regardless of how much strength he allowed himself to use.

He provoked you. Forced you to block his next swing. And kept the pressure up. He didn’t allow you to break off to the side or jump a step back. Unless you lost the grip on your sword or gave up you were stuck.

He won.

However, he had to commend your attempt. You didn’t yield. Tenacity he has found in you before but that never failed to impress.

He didn’t say any of it out loud.

When you didn’t allow yourself to give up, Mydei put more pressure on his sword. But instead of pushing down he pushed you back. Like before. Made you slide backwards over the ground. Just this time he followed you. The contact between your swords never vanished. Never faltered.

Only when your back met the small wall you usually sat on did the surprise and strain cause you to loosen the pressure on your sword.

It fell to the ground with a dull sound.

And left you with Mydei holding his wooden sword to your neck, his free hand bracing himself on top of the wall behind you as he stood in front of you.

Caging you between the wall and his body. Trapping you.

Something in the air shifted around you. As if Oronyx halted time themselves, drowning out everything that happened outside of you and him and made everything in front of him so much clearer. Vivid. Tangible.

You were close.

Too close.

He caught the hint of citrus from your hair, recognized all the shades of color in your eyes, noticed the faint flush of your cheeks…

He should pull back. Retreat and give you space.

So, why couldn’t he bring himself to do it? Why were his eyes drawn to your lips, slightly parted as your breath left you too quickly? Why was he so intrigued - captivated - by the sudden proximity? By you?

This was not like the embrace you’ve shared before. This wasn’t his heart seeking this warmth and comfort that calmed the itching in his veins. Something else tugged at his soul. Made him yearn for the contact. Something deeper. Hungrier.

It shouldn’t take all his willpower to pull away.

But, when he finally did and pushed himself off the wall, you caught the collar of his clothes. And tugged.

Not enough to throw off his balance but it caught him off guard enough that he had to brace himself on the wall again.

He caught your eyes. Caught the fire within them, overshadowing the hesitation and the nervousness that usually accompanied your movements when you found yourself in these situations with him.

Neither of you broke that eye contact. Your hold on his clothes didn’t relent. He didn’t pull back to put that distance between you either.

And before he realized it, he gave in. Mydei followed that cry of his soul. That instinct. This yearning rooted so deeply within his soul. Unfamiliar. Yet it burned and set his very soul ablaze.

And cupped your cheeks with his hands.

———————

The gauntlets felt cool on your heated skin.

This was new. It’s always been you who took a hold of his hand, always. Never him. Never both hands.

The feel and sight of the metal so close to you was daunting and it sent a shiver down your spine. Yet, you didn’t flinch. Your body didn’t recoil, you didn’t want to move away. And despite how intimidating the gesture - and he himself - could be, the touch on your skin was gentle. He hovered over your skin more than applying any actual pressure.

You realized you could withdraw at any moment.

But, you didn’t.

You wanted this. Wanted him. Right here and now with you and you yearned to know if this would feel as nice - as warm and safe - as being wrapped up in his arms had felt.

His breath fanned over your face. First like a faint breeze, then clearer. Warm. Inviting.

You met each other halfway. You couldn’t tell who pulled or leaned in closer, but within a heartbeat your lips found each other.

The kiss stunned you, the contact washing over you like a flood clearing your mind and soul from everything that wasn’t him. There was no fear, no panic, not even a lingering hesitation.

Just incredible warmth.

Mydei’s lips were soft. So much softer and warmer than you had anticipated. They molded against yours with such gentle pressure, as if afraid to hurt you, as if not daring to reach for more and it made your heart swell inside your chest.

Your hand reached up to gently clasp it over his. Not to push him away, but to keep him there. To keep the contact, to not give up on that warm, comforting feeling of his lips on yours, of his hands cradling your face…

Neither of you truly knew what was happening or what you were doing. To anyone else the way you kissed and held each other may have been considered clumsy, uncertain, but that lightheaded feeling spreading through you, clouding your mind and cradling your soul in such pleasant emotions, felt so good.

And so right.

His hair brushed your face as he tilted his head, following an instinct that let him kiss you more, kiss you longer. Deeper. The pressure firmer than before now, but it lost none of its gentle touch. And it made you exhale harder through your nose as you let yourself fall into him.

When you both pulled back, you couldn’t tell whether the moment had lasted mere seconds or if the hour of the day has changed already.

But as you looked at him - at the slightly swollen lips, the faintest hue of red on his cheeks, these gorgeous eyes burning brighter than Kephale’s light - and took in that lingering warmth and joy within you, you had to admit it to yourself…

You wanted more of it.

———————

If Mydei imagined it before that you haven’t tried to avoid physical contact with him there was no doubt about it ever since that day on the training grounds and the affection you’ve shared.

Something had shifted between the two of you.

Something that he neither disliked nor really questioned either. He embraced it. Sought it out. And gave in to the comfort he found in your presence.

The way it stilled the itching in his veins, how elated it made him feel after being engulfed by your warmth and proximity…

Kremnoan he might be - strong, glorious, and proud - but in this instance he allowed himself to be weak. If this was what it meant to be weak - seeking refuge and comfort within another person - he would turn his back on ancient traditions and welcome a new dawn instead without doubts.

The hesitation - uncertainty - to fully embrace and accept all this came from another source. And as he watched a small group of young Kremnoan men stroll through the lively streets of Okhema below his spot on the roofs it became all the more apparent.

So much to do. To consider.

He observed how these men engaged in friendly bantering, examining weapons at the shop, he caught words such as “warriors never back down” and “one day we’ll battle those Titankin until we meet our glorious ends”… He gritted his teeth.

But he also saw people holding hands in the streets, saw them engaging in embraces and kisses - some lingered, some remained fleeting - and to think that he could have that very same thing, stirred something within him.

The part of him that he kept concealed by never-ending duties and responsibilities - as a Chrysos Heir, as the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos - longed for it. Looked forward to your next encounter. It was the sense of normality he yearned for. The change he craved for his people.

If only he knew where the Flame-Chase journey would lead him.

If only he knew where fate would lead his people.

And yet, when he caught sight of you out of his peripheral vision as you found your way on top of the roofs, he couldn’t deny how some of the tension lifted off his soul like a leaf in the wind.

He didn’t turn his body to you as you approached him with slow steps but a look to the side showed him your small smile, the soft curve of your brows…

You looked relaxed. Playing with the kids after work today hasn’t taken a toll on you. Many would consider dealing with a group of small kids an exhaustive task. Demanding. Straining. Yet, you carried that responsibility on your shoulders with ease and even if no one ever asked it of you.

He admired that about you. Even before he’s ever spoken to you.

You slipped your hand around his arm and into his own hand when you came to stand next to him. He felt the faint pressure of your fingers slide over his palm and in-between his own - armored - fingers, linking your hands together. Before you - slowly but with no hesitation - leaned against his arm that wasn’t covered by fabric and armor.

Having you seek him out like this, leaning into this immortal body that didn’t know anything but the brutality of death and the agony of rebirth was so… intimate.

Despite it all, his body - or was it more than that? - gave you something that made you push past all that you knew about him. And all that has held you back before.

His hand clasped yours a bit tighter. Reassuringly. Letting you know how alright he was with this without speaking a single word.

He liked it this way.

“I got something, I need to tell you,” you said. He looked at you but you didn’t look up. You kept your hold on his arm, your cheek leaning against his skin, but your gaze was unfocused, directed at nothing in particular.

“What is it?” he asked as you didn’t continue.

A frown appeared on your face but you took a deep breath before continuing. You still avoided meeting his eyes, however.

“I want to spend the Curtain-Fall Hour with you. At least… I wanna try.”

He looked at you. Blinked. The words echoed in his head and the implications of it grabbed a hold of his mind. He’s heard you. No doubt about the meaning of your words either.

But…

“Are you sure of that?” he asked and he realized he probably could’ve phrased it in a more delicate way given the subject but he was caught off guard. Puzzled.

He recalled how it felt to hug you, to feel your lips against his own… but he also remembered how panicked you’ve been before when he had grabbed your wrist.

Still, you have changed. You never flinched or recoiled from his touch before. Even now, as you clung to his arm, there was no trembling, no hesitation to lean into him…

Mydei looked down at you as he awaited your reply and his eyes softened when he saw how you grabbed the crystal around your neck and held it against your heart.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I trust you,” you took a deep breath before a smile appeared on your lips again. You looked up at him before you closed your eyes and leaned further into his side. “I want this.”

Mydei didn’t know what to say to that. Though, he was afraid if you leaned closer to his chest you would realize how his heart thumped just a bit harder at your words.

He found no lie in your words, no uncertainty in your voice. You, who had every reason to stay away from others. You wanted to indulge further in whatever it was between the two of you. Because you trusted him.

That he wouldn’t hurt you. That he wouldn’t harm you.

That he would - that he could - provide comfort and security with his touch.

It was baffling, unfathomable to him knowing who he was. And yet, something deep within him stirred at the realization of it. Something warm. Something that clouded his mind and left him in a strange haze. One that he should deem dangerous but he couldn’t fight the sense of mirth it brought with it.

He looked down at you.

Your body felt warm against his arm and your hair grazed his skin like… He had nothing to compare your touch to, he had to acknowledge, and yet, is this what a gentle caress felt like?

Whatever it was - your touch, how you leaned into him, how your so much smaller hand felt in his - he enjoyed it. Reveled in it.

And… craved more of it.

He wondered what it would feel like to have you in his arms again like on that balcony. He wanted to know if your touch would soothe him again or if the touch of your lips would captivate him again. Make him yearn for it. For more. For you.

Never something he’s wanted or yearned for. Never something that captivated him among all the bloodshed and agony of death and rebirth on the battlefield all these years.

He’s never wanted an heir either. Still didn’t. And probably never would.

Intimacy has always been a concept out of his reach. Much like anything romantic.

But now…

He took a glimpse at you. Your gentle smile, how you leaned into him, your cheek against his upper arm, fully embracing and welcoming his touch…

Yes, he wanted to give a try to be more… intimate with you too.

#hsr #honkai star rail #mydei #mydei x reader #mydei x you #my fic

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nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos · 11 months ago

Text

I’m having too much fun with this someone stop me—

Important to note that I have wanted a speech-capable bird as a pet for pretty much my entire fcking life and have yet to have had the opportunity. Parrot, crow, raven, I care not, just. Chatty bird please.

I did get to meet a parrot one time when I took my niece trick-or-treating and I was dressed as a pirate who tf woulda guessed right not like I have a ton of clothes in my closet that I can use to throw together an impromptu pirate costume at a moment’s notice or anything hahahahaaaaanyway, and one of the people handing out candy was this older gentleman dressed as a pirate WITH AN ACTUAL FUCKING PARROT AND I GOT TO HOLD IT ISTG I ALMOST CRIED

My niece and I got extra candy out of the deal, too. Best Halloween ever.

ANYWAY. Writing a character in animal form is always a shitload of fun, and I am living for this nonsense.

And how mad this sassy mfer is going to be when he figures out what's going on SCREEEE

Flight Risk

Young!Mihawk x Marine!AFAB!Reader

Ch.5 of who even fcking knows,probably at least seven at this point

Brief summary of The Story So Far: Your mission, as a Marine and Zoan type devil fruit user (gray parrot), is to gather intel on Dracule Mihawk, a pirate on the Grand Line who has become a thorn in the Marines' side over a relatively short period of time.After finally arriving at Kuraigana Island after months of training, you discover that the Red Hair Pirates are also docked there while their Log Pose syncs and they repair their ship after a small battle...and, on the verge of fighting with Mihawk after spending the past half an hour or more taunting him, Shanks is the first to notice you perched in a nearby window in your devil fruit form.

Previous chapter, First chapter

Next chapter

SFW for now, but not in later chapters

No Trigger Warnings in this chapter. Possible future Trigger Warnings for imprisonment, mild torture (definitely psychological, maybe physical)

Tags: Enemies to lovers, eventually NSFW, idk maybe more later

Word Count:3,618

Taglist:@i-am-vita

♫♬Acid Jazz Singer- The Fratellis♬♫

And it’s one time, keep it slow, wind them up and here we go

Get it right today and you may still be here tomorrow

Your entire world slowed around you as you considered the situation you had just embedded yourself into. Not one, but three powerful pirates, two of whom were staring straight at you.

One of whom looked as though he had just won his weight in gold at the mere sight of you.

Your act, you had to remember your act, your persona, a simple pet of one of many ill-fated pirate crews on the Grand Line. Fear was surely still a reasonable enough reaction to the sight before you, then.

So, without another thought, you ruffled your feathers out into a defensive stance, throwing your head back and flapping your wings rapidly, shouting, “Danger! Danger! Danger—”

“Oh—no, no, no, no, no danger, it’s—stop that, I’m busy—”

Shanks shoved Mihawk’s sword away and slowly sheathed his own sabre, holding his hands up as he slowly inched toward the window you were perched in, as if to show that he posed you no thread.

“It’s fine, we’re all friends here,” said Shanks went on softly, hands still raised, inching ever closer to the window of the castle you remained perched in. You took a cautious step back in spite of yourself, your eyes darting around, quickly assessing the situation at hand.

Mihawk was all but gawking at Shanks in a mix of utter disbelief and quickly growing rage—Shanks had, after all, spent the past half hour antagonizing him into a fight, only to withdraw the moment he was distracted.

Beckman’s gaze remained far more level, his brow furrowed as he watched your reaction to Shanks’s approach.

So you quickly ducked backward into the darkened room of the castle behind you, hiding behind the corner.

“N—no, no, don’t hide, it’s alright—we were just having a little a fun, isn’t that right, Hawkie?”

“I swear to God, Red-Hair—” you heard the other pirate respond through gritted teeth, clinging to the wall just inside the window with your talons, your heart racing.

“See?” Shanks went on, ignoring his murderous tone. “Just a little fun, that’s all, you’re safe—”

You stared in growing trepidation as he reached his hand slowly through the window, and the moment it was an inch away from you, you bit down hard on one of his fingers.

“Ow—” He pulled his hand back in an instant, and you could practically hear him pouting when he spoke again. “...it bit me.”

“What the hell did you think it was going to do, join your damned crew?” said Mihawk, giving a derisive scoff.

“Yes,” said Shanks, defensively.

“No,” said Beckman firmly.

“But—!”

“I spend enough time cleaning up your messes, I’m not cleaning up bird shit all over the ship on top of it.”

“I’d clean up after it.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Oh, come on—Hawk-Eye, you’re part bird, help me get it—”

“I’m not part bird, you complete moron,” snapped Hawk-Eye. “Get the damned thing yourself.”

Shanks was quiet for a long moment as you fought to gain control of your breathing, to calm your racing heart...and then—

“Fine, if you wanna clean up bird shit all over your castle—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

You heard quickly approaching footsteps following the irritated grumble, and part of you considered ducking further back into the castle...but you knew you couldn’t. You shouldn’t. This was your opportunity.

A moment later you let out a strangled squawk as his hand closed around your neck and he jerked you away from the wall you were clinging to. He held you out at arm’s length, still scowling. Shanks slumped back against the castle wall, still pouting. “How come it didn’t bite you?” he complained.

“Because I was smart enough not to give the damned creature a chance to,” he shot back, tossing a brief glare at Shanks before turning his yellow eyes back on you.

You steeled your nerves before tilting your head to the side and blinking a few times, and forced out in the most chipper tone you could muster, “Hiya!”

Shank’s jaw dropped in borderline outrage, but Mihawk only lifted an eyebrow. Beckman gave an amused scoff as he ashed his cigarette. “Looks like you made a friend, Hawk-Eye.”

“That’s not fair,” said Shanks, pushing away from the castle wall and approaching. “I was being nice and—”

As he drew closer, you ruffled your feathers out again, shouting, “Danger! Danger!”

“I’m not the dangerous one, he is!” Shanks shouted back, gesturing at Mihawk.

“Yelling probably isn’t going to help, Cap,” Beckman pointed out, crossing his arms and smirking at the spectacle. Mihawk was still holding you at arm’s length as you continued shouting, his yellow eyes shifting between you and Shanks. He shifted his arm, holding you further away from the redhead, and you quieted down. Then, just as slowly, with the slightest spark of interest in his expression, he shifted you closer to Shanks again.

You immediately resumed shouting.

“I don’t think it likes you very much, Red Hair,” he said, his lips curling into a smirk at the dejected look that fell over Shanks’s face. Mihawk held you further away from him again, his grip loosened around your neck now, and you expelled a sigh, your feathers smoothing back down. You still remained tense, well aware that he could easily snap your neck in a moment’s notice if you made a single wrong move...but his amusement at Shanks’s disappointment was likely a good sign. If all you had to do was continue to insult him, then you were sure you could manage.

“Stupid bird,” Shanks complained, kicking at a piece of rubble and slumping back against the pile of stone next to Beckman, crossing his arms.

“I’m fairly certain there’s only one birdbrain in the immediate vicinity, Red Hair,” said Mihawk.

“Birdbrain!” you repeated, and his eyes shot back over to you as Beckman gave a snort of laughter. You tilted your head again. “Hiya!”

“...Hello,” he said dryly—and finally released you from his grasp without any notice, causing you to drop to the ground before you could so much as flutter your wings. You quickly hopped back up to your feet, ruffling your wings out a bit to shake the dirt off of them, and flew back over to the windowsill you had been perched in, turning your head around to preen your feathers while the three pirates watched you in bemusement.

“Strange creature,” Mihawk commented after a moment, turning and striding back over to the broken wall and taking a seat again.

“I don’t think they usually talk in wild,” said Beckman. “Probably came from a ship.”

You turned your head quickly at the word ship, squawking out, “Wind in your sails! Wind in your sails! Hard to port, boys!”

“Aaaagh!” Shanks groaned again, flopping his head back dramatically. “It’s not fair, I want it—”

“Birdbrain!”

“Oh, shut up,” he snapped, and it wasn’t entirely clear whether it was in response to your comment or Mihawk’s small chuckle of amusement.

“Well.” Beckman straightened out, stubbing out his cigarette on the crumbled stone behind him and flicking the butt away. “I think it’s pretty clear the locals don’t want us here, Captain.” Shanks tossed a glare at his first mate, but straightened out himself, arms still crossed over his chest, lips still pursed in a pout.

“Fine…” he sighed, his arms falling limp at his sides. He rolled his eyes over to Mihawk, quickly regaining his composure and giving his so-called ‘friend’ a debonair grin. “I look forward to our next little visit, Hawk-Eye.”

“That makes one of us,” Mihawk commented in his typical dry tone, laying his sword out across his lap again without so much as glancing up.

You watched from the corner of your vision as Shanks and Beckman disappeared into the shadow of the surrounding dense forest, relaxing only the slightest bit at their departure. You had managed to fool all three of them so far, and evidently made a good first impression on your target. That was good. That was progress. You turned your gaze back toward Mihawk slowly, swallowing, debating on your next move.

And froze when he lifted his head suddenly, looking directly at you as if he had sensed your gaze.

He then rolled his eyes and went back to detailing his sword.

“You’re free to leave any time,” he said.

You quickly perked up, letting out another excitable, “Hiya!” He let out a small growl of annoyance in response, grumbling something under his breath about that idiot Red-Hair, to which you responded, “Birdbrain.”

He let out another amused chuckle, before freezing and looking back up at you with a frown. “Stop that. Just—shoo.”

It seemed his annoyance stemmed more from his own reaction to you rather than toward your presence itself, from the fact that he was already interested in you and your presence seemed to threaten his solitary existence.

This could be a good thing, you decided. If nothing else, he was intrigued, and you knew you could work with that.

Once he had turned his attention back to his sword, you hopped down from the edge of the window and to the dusty ground below, keeping your eyes trained on the pirate as you inched slowly closer, sidestepping against the edge of the castle wall.

Freezing in place when his eyes shot toward you again.

Inching a little further, a little closer when he lowered his gaze again.

Freezing yet again when he looked up. He frowned at you for a long moment, standing still as a statue, your gray plumage blending you right into the stone castle wall behind you. Several tense seconds passed before he heaved a sigh, leaning back the slightest bit. “You’re a persistent little pest, aren’t you?” he said, lifting an eyebrow...and then slowly, almost reluctantly, he raised his arm, holding it out toward you.

Progress.

You fluttered your wings, flying the short distance over and landing on his forearm near his wrist, wrapping your talons around carefully to keep your balance. He lifted an eyebrow at you as you perked up and let out another enthusiastic, “Hiya!”

“Yes, hello,” he said, almost dismissively.

“Hiya!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he grumbled, shaking his head and running his free hand back through his hair. “What are you even doing here? Lost your old crew?” He gave a small scoff as you tilted your head. “What were they? Pirates? Marines?”

As if prompted, you immediately ruffled your feathers out around your neck, flapping your wings in agitation—”Danger! Danger! Dan—”

He jerked back the slightest bit at your reaction, and you snapped your beak shut at the sudden motion. He turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing, his expression more curious than annoyed. After a moment he spoke, almost carefully. “Pirates.”

He was testing you. You ruffled your wings a bit, and turned your head around, preening your feathers without showing the slightest sign of interest.

“...Marines—”

“Danger! Danger! Hard to port! Fire at will! Fire—”

“Alright, alright, enough,” he snapped, shaking his arm, wincing a little as you tightened your talons a bit. He heaved a sigh when you settled down. “I suppose it’s safe to assume you’re not particularly fond of...er, the bureaucracy.” He lifted an eyebrow as you loosened your talons, and inched sideways across his arm, your movements slow and cautious. “What are you doing?” You inched a bit further, keeping your eyes trained for any sign of him striking out—and you saw none.

A little closer, until you were nearly on his shoulder, deciding to push your luck to gauge his reaction.

You leaned your head back, and let out a dramatic, “Mmm-mwah! Pretty bird.”

He stared at you for a long moment, his expression deadpanning, blinking at you slowly.

“You’re worse than Red-Hair,” he said finally.

“Birdbrain!”

“Indeed he is,” he agreed—and then shook his head, shifting his shoulder toward you as if to shift you further away. “Why the hell am I talking to a bird—shoo already—”

You gave a startled squawk, shifting quickly back down the length of his arm, settling closer to his elbow and tilting your head to the side. His mouth fell into a frown, and he shook his arm a bit, in more an experimental manner than an aggressive one, testing your reaction again.

“Shoo,” he said once more, far less firmly.

You lifted one of your wings, ducking your head back behind it...and slowly lifting it to peak out at him, noting the small spark of interest in his gaze despite his best attempt to continue appearing annoyed.

“Pretty bird!” you exclaimed once more, a bit more quietly this time, before ducking your head back down behind your wing again.

He remained silent for some time, and you remained still, waiting for any sign of reaction from him. Finally he heaved out a long sigh, his posture relaxing again. You lifted your head to peak out over the top of your wing again as he looked at you with an irritated sort of resignation. “Yes, fine,” he said dryly. “Pretty bird.”

“Pretty bird!” You folded your wing back behind you, bobbing your head up and down a couple times, your own tension easing as he let out a quiet chuckle and shook his head. “Pretty, pretty girl,” you added, punctuating the statement with a low whistle.

“Oh, so you’re a lady, are you?” he said with a wry smirk. “I suppose I should apologize for my rudeness.” Despite his clear sarcasm, he gave another small chuckle, tentatively lifted his free hand toward you, and lightly brushed his index finger across the gray feathers at the side of your head. “You know, you’d likely have been far better off following that idiot Red Hair back to his ship.”

“Birdbrain!” you commented, tilting your head toward his hand as he gave a small snort of amusement.

“Yes, the birdbrain,” he agreed with another light chuckle, his wry smirk shifting toward a small, genuine smile. He went on stroking your feathers idly for a moment, shaking his head. “And what, precisely, am I supposed to do with you?”

If nothing else, it was comforting to know that his violent nature didn’t extend beyond humans. He was warming up to your presence far more quickly than you had anticipated he might, but your own knowledge was limited solely to the intelligence the Marines had gathered from his reign of terror and bloodshed across the vast expanse of the Grand Line. His interactions with Shanks suggested he certainly preferred a solitary existence, and that his initial dismissive attitude toward your presence may have been more for show than anything, for the very sake of keeping up his reputation.

Nothing about his present demeanor suggested any of that. The fondness in his eyes as he surveyed your own reactions was almost comforting in itself, almost familiar—you had seen the same look in you mother’s eyes when she cared for the birds at the aviary, felt the same fondness for the creatures when you helped look after them.

It took some effort for you to remind yourself that you were dealing with an incredibly dangerous pirate, dangerous enough that the World Government considered him a threat.

“Pretty bird!” you said again, cooing the words out, watching as he let out a huff of amusement.

“What a vain creature you are,” he commented, smoothing back the feathers at the top of your head. “Though I doubt you can survive on compliments alone. And if Beckman’s correct, you’re likely not suited to living in the wild...the humandrills don’t particularly take kindly to any new creature in their territory…” You only tilted your head in response as his words turned toward introspective mutterings, his mouth turning down into a thoughtful frown.

At length he let out a sigh, rolling his eyes and lying his head back for a moment. You tensed as he stood up, lifting his sword with one hand and resting it back across his shoulder, clearly making an effort to hold his opposite arm steady in front of him as you remained perched there, still frowning at you with an air of resignation.

“I suppose I have some reading to do if you aren’t going anywhere,” he said.

You could hardly believe your luck as he shook his arm out slightly, directing you to shift over to his shoulder. You followed the wordless instruction quickly, your talons grasping lightly at the fabric of his shirt to keep your balance as he stooped down to pick up his plumed hat. Rather than the obstacle that Garp and Bogard had assumed they would be, the brief presence of the Red Hair Pirates on the island had practically ensured your initial success at winning over the otherwise reclusive target of your mission.

If you managed to come out of this mission alive, you were going to be certain to rub that in both of their faces.

Minutes later you were perching in one of the high windows of the castle, watching as Mihawk drew his fingers across the rows upon rows of dusty books in the orange glow of the candlelight in the library, his head tilted and his sharp yellow eyes scanning across the titles etched into the spines of the innumerable tomes.

“Nothing about birds so far,” he said, mostly a quiet utterance to himself, but he still glanced toward your silhouette in the window as he spoke. “I do hope you don’t end up being more trouble than you’re worth, bird.”

You ruffled your feathers a bit, tucking your head down and nearly closing your eyes. He gave a small scoff at the sight of you relaxing, rolling his eyes before resuming his meticulous perusal of the books in the library.

“You’d best hope I find something if you don’t want to starve to death,” he commented. “I have no intention of going out of my way to accommodate you.”

“Pretty girl,” you responded, along with a brief series of kissing noises and a low whistle, and you would have been smirking yourself if you could have when he let out a quiet, amused chuckle in response to your commentary.

“Yes, yes, we’re all aware you’re a pretty girl,” he responded airily from behind a row of books.

Some time passed before he finally gave up, propping his sword against one of the many shelves and falling back into an armchair near the empty fireplace at the center of the room. You hesitated at your perch on the window for some time, watching him run a hand back through his dark hair in clear, stretching his arm out across an arm of the chair and strumming his fingers, his lips turned down in a thoughtful frown.

You finally decided to join him there, flapping your wings a few times to gain enough momentum to glide over and perch at the edge of one of the arms, tilting your head when he glanced over at you, waiting to see whether he would shoo you off or welcome your presence. He frowned at you for a long moment, before finally rolling his eyes and holding out his hand.

“Troublesome creature.” His tone was still light, almost affectionate, his mouth curving into a small smile as you crept from the edge of the chair to perch on his arm. “I suppose I do need to make port for supplies soon. It wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to learn a bit more about you, would it, pretty bird?”

“Pretty bird,” you responded, inching closer, settling yourself just above his elbow.

He brushed his knuckles against your feathers at the side of your head, giving a small chuckle as your eyelids drooped in response to his touch, before tucking his hand behind his neck and shifting back into the chair, his eyes slipping shut.

“Yes, pretty bird,” he repeated in a resigned sigh, his tone quiet and almost gentle.

Your eyes slowly drifted back open, watching him as he relaxed, your mind racing in spite of your own exhaustion. You hadn’t expected it to be this easy. Your target was supposed to be a terrifying, murderous sociopath with no regard or concern for any life apart from his own, an enigma that the Marines regarded as an unfeeling monster. Instead you found yourself staring up at a perfectly normal, albeit somewhat reclusive man, his mouth still curved into a small, fond smile in response to your presence. His smile lingered even as his breathing grew slower and deeper as he drifted off to sleep, just as your gaze lingered on his features.

He had been far kinder to you than the vast majority of your supposed comrades even had.

He could have easily snapped your neck the moment he first touched you...but he hadn’t.

Once more you shifted up his arm, perching yourself on his shoulder, and just to test his reaction, you nuzzled against his neck.

He lifted a hand in his sleep to absently swat at the disturbance, his expression twitching toward irritation for a moment—and then softening as his hand settled lightly into your feathers, his fingertips brushing across your wings before his arm fell across his lap, still fast asleep.

Little as you liked it, you were quickly becoming as interested in finding out more about him as he seemed to be interested in learning about you.

You liked it even less that you already felt comfortable enough to let your own eyes drift shut, the sound of his own slow breathing lulling you toward sleep.

Next chapter link again, for your convenience

#one piece #opla #mihawk x reader #mihawk #dracule mihawk #dracule mihawk x reader #Shanks #Red-Haired Shanks #Beck #Benn Beckman #Red Hair Pirates #fan fiction #one piece fan fiction #fanfic #one piece fanfic #flightrisk

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easy-there-leftovers · 2 years ago

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I See You, Darling (3)

[Astarion x reader] As I mentioned in a previous post, this came along surprisingly easier than the last one. The same can’t be said about the quality though maybe– sorry for that. :,DDD|Word count: 2.6k.|

Content Warnings: Mentions of cooking, handling knives, blood, one sex joke (lol), the normal warnings that you’d associate with the game

Part 2 here!!

Next Part here!!

As an outsider to most of everyone’s problems, you find your place by helping in whatever way you can. Even if that may be at the expense of your own comfort, but at least it’s been fun so far.

Alternatively: Reader can't catch a break from anything, can they?

————━─━────༺༻────━─━————

Being resident camp caretaker was surprising, for lack of a better term. You were away from the stresses of technology, corporate assholes, and disappointing family with your choice to pursue unpractical careers. Instead living the “cottagecore lifestyle” of foraging for food and cooking with a cauldron that those from the digital world claimed to be the best. What they failed to mention were the incessant pests coming in to nibble through rucksacks if you were not careful, and the occasional swarms of ants or flies coming in to nip at your flesh.

The experience was a mixed bag, so it would seem. But the tired smiles that the group would give you when you greet them with a warm and filling meal was always a comfort that you would have.

And it would seem they needed it now more especially than ever.

Your band of misfits planned to venture out and defeat the goblins at their camp in order to aid the tieflings’ journey to Baulder’s Gate. Per your instruction, you convinced the more solipsistic members of the benefits of eradicating the sect. Namely, they wouldn’t hinder you as much in the future if they were taken care of. Hence your plan to slightly increase the amount of portions for supper tonight.

By twilight, you had a good broth steeping in your cauldron. The camp having returned just a few moments prior from an earlier excursion. You were making a pottage that the others have expressed their enjoyment for. A stew of sorts that you had made when you had quite the number of items that would have spoiled before consumption had you not done anything about it. A mixture of fruits and meat, stewed in a consomme of a pig’s head and various mushroom caps.

This time around, you’ll be using fresher ingredients to hopefully lift their spirits.

As you’re chopping up fruits, you think about all that’s happened to you and possible explanations for why your character suddenly ceased to exist in order to make room for you. What’s more is that no matter how many nights pass, you never end up waking from your dream. Which you fear is lasting longer than your usual ones.

Your working theory is that whatever force, be it magic or fate, tethering you to this world is also responsible for removing Tav. Astarion claimed that he couldn’t remember the finer details when you had confronted him. And so you settled with that hypothesis. That like how a thread that unravels opens a seam in a garment, a new thread must be used to darn the cloth together again.

You laugh at the disgustingly poetic analogy you created in your head. You fear that you’re becoming more and more deranged as—

“My, aren’t you busy?” The intrusive voice causes the knife to slip out of your hand a bit, thankfully only cutting off a portion of your index finger’s nail. Your shoulders, that were raised in alarm, release their tension after feeling the sudden chill leave your body.

“Astarion,” Exasperated, you put the knife down on the cutting board to catch your breath for a while.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped sneaking up on me when I’m doing something dangerous.”

The high-elf offers a mischievous smile in response. “Very sorry, pet. But it’s hardly my fault when you’ve barely been paying attention to me.” There’s regret in his words, but not in his tone.

Because while perhaps it’s an odd interest, he enjoys hearing the quickened pace of your heart. The pulse getting louder, as it stays that way for longer.

“I’d feel sorry for doing so if you were too, but you’re not.”

You laugh out, breath still shaky but steadying slowly, as you pick up your knife again.

“I heard you’re part of the encampment that’s finishing off the goblins by midmorn.” Chopping the rest of the fruits, you feel his presence move from behind you to off to your side so you can see him from your peripherals.

“Hm? Yes. Although I would have preferred if we didn’t do this at all. It’s too much work, and the goblins could be entertaining! Killing useful spoils seems like an awful waste.”

This must be the reason why he approached you, to persuade you to call off the hunt. And his unfading smile supports that thought. When you voice said thought, it earns you a playful scoff.

“Don’t you have anything else on your mind other than the parasite lounging in it?”

The mood is light as you say this, the banter welcomed by you both.

And as you continue to converse, a few eyes begin to follow the two of you. They’ve never really seen Astarion interact with you for this long, at least not away from your private spaces. And even less without hushed voices. The interlocution is definitely a welcome spectacle to them.

“On my honor, the only thing on my mind is depraved, carnal lust.” He says, proudly. Gesturing to himself with one hand, and the other held high like he was swearing an oath.

Your closed mouth drops into frown, eyes wide, and your eyebrows skew upwards. A very undignified, but small, squeak coming from the back of your throat. You swore you heard someone groan in disappointment from far away too.

You know full well that the look of shock that you were sporting was by no means attractive, but the flagrant revelation, though not at all out of character, was shocking to have directed towards you. You’ve been trying to romance the elven vampire with your character, only to end up nowhere. Therefore you are completely unsure if the dialogue he was spewing was completely a figment of your imagination, or is, indeed, canon.

The elf in question has seen this expression of yours before. Quite often, too. And while he doesn’t think it a, “pleasant sight,” it is rather… charming to him.

Whether it be on purpose or not, people have the tendency to be on guard around him, preserving any twitch and sound that could give them away to themselves. Not that much had ever evaded him before with his naturally cunning behavior. But this clearly unscripted response, with the blatant confusion swimming in your eyes, is a rather refreshing sight to see.

“I see–” you clear your throat to lower your voice back to its normal octave. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to uh, bring those thoughts into fruition! Uh–,” You slide the rest of the cut fruits off of your cutting board and into the stew.

“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me? Something I should know?” You turn to face him. He laughs at first, but then his brows furrow in question, as if he did have something to say and forgot about it or thinks it is no longer an appropriate time to ask. He shakes his head and says something along the lines of, “letting you do all the hard work” and returns to his tent.

But you are not left alone for long as another member of your little ragtag team joins you to ask about dinner. To which you ask them for which meat would be better to toss into it.

—————————

After dinner, your little rapport concerning the plan and new findings with everyone is adjourned. Some thanked you before they left, and others simply walked away. From what you have learned from them, the Archdruid that was taken prisoner by the goblins was named, “Halsin.” He was a topic of interest as they said he might be able to aid you in your search for moonrise and understanding the Mindflayer worms.

Wyll had also approached you alone after dinner and offhandedly mentioned a dead boar being on the road. He had planned to return to camp with it if it could have been useful, but he had claimed that the animal had been unnervingly light. As if half of its weight was no longer there despite seemingly just keeling over for no reason.

You take note of that in one of your many journals, including additional information about the Archdruid and their kind in general. The book appearing more and more like the game’s quest booklet, with the exception of a few crossouts and colored ink to emphasize each quest’s urgency and relevance to finding a cure. When you successfully rescue the druid of the grove, it seems you will have to move out quite soon after, so you fixed up your pack just a bit to make it easier later on.

You look around, everyone seems to be in their respective areas. Doing whatever it is they usually do with the exception of Astarion. Though he has been known to either sneak off or hide away from time to time in his tent, so you think nothing of it.

You return to the communal chest, tallying up the remaining supplies and inspecting the wares. You sort the tradeable objects in one rucksack and appraise its worth. The chest also has pieces of gold, some that others have placed, and others you picked up and added. You prefer to let the others keep what they think is valuable to them, and only place what they want to share in the vessel.

If the party’s gold ever runs out, you think that the rucksack is worth a few nights of food when you travel out again. Assured by this knowledge, you placed your writing materials back in, closed the chest, and turned in for the night.

Maybe this time, you’ll wake up. But you also don’t really want to. Not just yet.

—————————————

As you slept, you wondered about the longevity of your knowledge of the media. You hadn’t finished the game, and although you’ve accomplished a fair bit of it, you worry about how you will face the events to come. One of the only reasons why you haven’t flinched so much at the terrors that occurred was because you had anticipated them. Braced yourself for the dangers ahead.

You fear what might happen when you no longer have that power at your disposal.

Perhaps it's the worry, perhaps it's the stiff, compact ground that you have yet to be accustomed to sleep on despite the bedroll, or perhaps it's the presence of something suddenly cool that stirs you awake.

But what you did not expect was Astarion’s face hovering over yours to be the reason. Fangs bared, and ready to bite. Your eyes go wide and you let out a small gasp, hands moving up in a gesture akin to clawing at yourself.

The elf realizes that you’re awake now and he curses. Moving away as you scramble upright just like you did all those nights ago. The look of genuine fear at the prospect of being bitten is apparent on your face, and he feels almost guilty to be greeted with it.

“Please, I wasn’t going to hurt you— I just needed, well, blood.” He says it in a panic. Worried that you might run off, losing his only sure chance, and possibly enraging the rest of the camp.

In this moment, you realized the error in your ways. Astarion had been hunting nearly every other night in the same area. And if you were progressing through the events like how the game did, he couldn’t have had the time nor energy to venture too far after feeding from most of the creatures in the vicinity.

‘The exsanguinated boar…’ You remember.

“You’ve been feeding on animals for the past few nights, haven’t you?”

“It seems like word got around then.” Although unknowingly, he’s referencing what Wyll delivered to you earlier in the night.

“I’m not some monster, I feed on boars, deer, kobolds– whatever I can get. I’m just too slow right now. And with the damned excursion,” He stops himself, complaining is only doing worse for his condition.

“It’s not enough. I feel so…weak. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better.” You’re conflicted. You had no problem offering yourself as your character for him to feed on, but even witnessing that through a disconnected screen was enough to make you feel uncomfortable imagining it. You care about him, want to give him what he deserves, but this…

What’s more is that you know what he’s saying is necessary, not at all overstating how dire his need to satiate his hunger is, making it all the more difficult.

He needs to convince you, if he wants to continue on, that is. Without the presence of the illithid, he resorts to more practical means of doing so. Similar to what he did to many.

Noticing the slight tremor of your hands, he takes the chance to slowly kneel down on your bedroll. Closing the distance between you. He takes your hand, now rougher from the work you do, and meets your shaken gaze with his dark eyes.

“Please. I only need a taste, I swear.” He had meant to tell you before dinner, had he not felt the eyes of the others on the two of you. This discovery is not lost on you. He needs you specifically. And you realize it's out of convenience because you’re an expendable resource. If you pass, the group can venture on, but he also still needs you alive for whatever reason. He can’t have the others finding out, not until they trust him.

He needs you to trust him. And this is the only way you can help him in this moment.

With that, you strengthen your resolve.

“I…I trust you, Astarion. But no more than what you need.” A dangerous bet, but you hope it would be worth it.

“Really? I–”

“Can I trust you on that?” The shock on his face fades, and he agrees.

“Let’s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?” You lay down, preparing yourself to faint during the process and allowing your blood to flow throughout your body. He observes the rapid movement of your eyes as he drapes himself above you. Your sight flitting from anywhere but him and then returning all the same. No doubt that you fear being at his mercy.

He feels almost sorry that you have to do this for him.

So he graces you with what mercy he can give.

The bite is quick. You would have felt the flesh of your neck parting for him, had he not done so. You feel tears prick at your eyes and start to feel the area from your neck and upwards go cold.

A momentary, sharp pain, that lulls to a chilling numbness in what seems like a matter of seconds.

You feel his body start to grow warmer at your expense and you feel satisfied knowing that you could help him.

When he doesn't stop, you start to worry.

Your breath catches in staccato beats, pulse quickening in tandem. You try to stop him, hands coming up to push or tug, but the heavy sensation that washes over you only permits them to find purchase on his form.

You try to speak, but it seems as if the common tongue does not reach him.

Your mind goes into overdrive, all of a sudden it doesn’t feel like a dream anymore and genuine fear courses through your veins.

You need him to stop, and you try to think of more efficient ways of doing so.

But your mind starts slowing as well. The pain has certainly faded, but the presence of the vampire at your throat reminds you in case you’ve forgotten.

As a last ditch effort, you try to use whatever might appeal to him, to break him out of the trance that he was in from finally replenishing himself.

It was one of the few Elvish words you recalled.

The effort thankfully makes him pull back in shock, stopping him. Your eyes finally close, thankful for the reprieve you're finally granted. You hear a distant, “thank you,” and a more distant “shit” before rest takes over.

You worry about waking up tomorrow.

But for now, you’re thankful that Astarion will be able to fight well.

For himself and for everyone else’s sake.

━─━────༺༻────━─━

Thank you to @rey26, @shyminnie07, @lynnloveshobi, @iggee-rose, @automnepoet, @tiannamortis, @aoirohi, @sarkara211, @jane-3043, @h3110-dar1in9, @h3ll0k1ttyl0ver333, @mimziethealien, @squichymochi, @sharabay, @furblrwurblr, @dork-of-the-universe, @thedevilssinner, @fuckalrighty, @queenofthespacesquids, @perseny, @goldenplutus, @h4nluv, @awkward-d3rs3-dr3amer, and @auszimbo for asking to be tagged!!

#astarion ancunin #astarion x reader #astarion x you #astarion ancunin x reader #baldur's gate 3 x reader #aware!astarion #bg3 x reader isekai(?)#bg3 x reader

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im-not-a-ghost · 11 months ago

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Their next move towards you and the connection

For this reading, you can ask about a crush, a future lover or even your FS. I'll be using the Golden thread tarot from Labyrinthos. I found the illustrations on Pinterest but the creator isn't clearly mentioned so I'm not sure who made them.

A floating island in a hand

This person might take some time away from you before actually coming towards you. They are unsure of their intentions and feelings. For some of you, this person needs to cut ties first with a previous connection, represented by the queen of pentacles. Whether they take some time to reflect on the connection or to solve personal issues, I feel like they will leave their next steps up to fate. This person, not knowing whether you are the one for them, will have this mindset of "if it's meant to be, it will be". They will not actively search for you but they won't actively avoid you either. They may receive signs from the Universe about your connection to guide them. If during the day, they try their best not to think of you, they will be reminded of you at night time and/or in their dreams. The truth is they are currently torn between putting an end to this connection and charging ahead. They are aware of your feelings and intentions for them but they're afraid of what this means to them. They are not in a good enough state to be mature enough to make a final decision. On one hand, they're afraid that they can't give you what you want or that this is destined to fail, but on the other hand, they fear losing a very precious and meaningful connection that only happens one in a lifetime. It's like they think "what were the odds that fate would put in my hands such a precious treasure?" but at the same time they think "am I truly worthy of it? Isn't it just too good to be true?". In short, I don't see much movement for now in this connection in the near future.

Cacti pointing toward the sky

This person has been wishfully thinking of you for quite some time. They may have dreamed of you recently which persuaded them to finally act based on their wishes. They may contact you in the near future but not without a great deal of fear. They may appear as defensive or disinterested when they do, when in reality they are just super nervous about your reactions. They may invite you to their work place for some reason or ask you to hang out with them. But this might take some time before it happens. I feel like this person is at a distance from you so you may be chatting online for a while before actually interacting in person. They intend on taking their time to get to know you better. They don't want to rush into a connection without knowing what they're getting themselves into. Though they are nervous and wary, they also have a great deal of hope that this connection is meant to evolve positively. I feel like this person hasn't had a great deal of luck in their love life and/or they've been single for a long time. They don't want to date just for fun. If they're with you, they want it to be for the long run so they will make sure that you're worth it first. You also may receive messages about this person through your dreams. Maybe you will dream about this person a few days prior to their invitation. I see this person offering you to be friends first. They may add you on social media and refer to you as their friend. I'm picking up on someone boasting about their new friend to their group of friends, like "look at what my bestie does, aren't they so talented?" lmao They might share your stories in their feed or mention you everytime they do something that reminds them of you. That will be a telltale sign of their interest for you.

Palm trees by the beach

I hate to be the bringer of bad news but for some of you this person intends to move on from this connection and cut ties with you. For others, this person is already in a relatioship with someone else. That may be true for those of you who were asking about a crush. For those who were asking about a future partner, this person is currently not in the mood to look for love. They may be struggling with depression at the moment. Their priority is to get back on track and learn to love themselves first. Similarly to the first group, there's a feeling of confusion and sadness. This person has to make a choice between staying or leaving a situation, a partnership. They are slowly but surely turning their back on love. With time, this person is going to move on. They might have to cross seas to be able to be with you. I also sense the energy of someone being fearful of the feminine. They might have mother issues or were badly hurt by a feminine in the past. So I feel like the outcome for this group doesn't look very positive for now. They're really afraid to love again. For some of you maybe this person isn't in a relationship but they were so badly hurt by the previous one that they just can't imagine themselves being with someone at the moment. And maybe they are catching feelings for you, however they were not ready for those. They're not ready to face what you mean to them and what you could be. If this person is truly meant to be with you, this is likely to take a long time before they do.

#pick a card #pac reading #just-a-ghost #love pac #tarot reading

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moonlitbeth · 2 months ago

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the Death and Rebirth update yapping, y'all! you're welcome to join in the comments 🐦‍⬛

so... with so many players now sprinting through the lore and main story chapters (myself included), i guess it's perfect time to indulge in a little speculation session abt tomorrow’s update.

first of all i'm sooo glad we're getting a full main story update instead of a separate branch. the only thing here is no free 5-star card (and tbh, most of us were waiting for a green one). but that's at least balanced out by the fact that major updates are now released a bit more frequently than once every 6 months. hopefully, this trend continues (given some rumors, next story updates might be dropped within 2 months). lads really feels the most exciting when the main plot is moving forward, no back-to-back banner mayhem match that energy.

action, drama, and that damn entrance it's pretty clear that we're so in for action-packed storylines. that trailer is absolutely big-screen material. the shift toward more dynamic animated scenes is noticeable and very welcome. esp when it comes to Sylus. the boss-man is finally back nearly a year after his debut.

and how can we ignore that entrance? the man never shows up quietly, always so dramatic and effortless (just like in his intro in LAR). i'm hoping what we saw in the pv isn't all we'll get cutscene-wise since there'll be 2 chapters per LI. it's also possible that the devs might've changed their approach to how they deliver the main story content. tho don't let me get too excited, this fandom loves being delusional.

in angst we trust judging by the Death and Rebirth title, we're sure as hell getting our heavy dose of angst (which i've honestly been craving lately). we've had our fluff therapy over the past couple of months, now it's payback time. and knowing infold, it's going to hurt. i also bet everything i have that the whole "memory return" thing will revolve around MC, not Sylus or Zayne. those chapter descriptions basically scream it.

the Timelock Key event as for the alongside event, there's a solid chance we'll get LIs' POV into their past. last night, while rereading LAR for the umpteenth time (don't judge me), i had this thought – what if we get a deeper dive into Sylus' backstory? like the stuff briefly touched on in World Underneath (Mischief/Elysium timelines), his early years on Earth, his path leading to meeting MC, his POV mid-LAR (this man had a breakdown, ok?), or his absence in the N109 Zone earlier. maybe even small pieces from his anecdote? there's so much potential here, and i hope his team keeps delivering that peak writing. i'm just eager for some analysis fuel.

Eye of Aether and more hints damn, those visuals!

this one is just adding more fuel to the fire for the theory that the Eye of Aether is deeply connected to Sylus. maybe we'll finally get some answers... or another batch of cryptic clues. personally, i think this is one of the most intriguing mysteries in both the core lore and Sylus' story. but as usual, we're only getting crumbs.

and then there's another pic. this one clearly references the abandoned chapel from the limited myth. and i love the gothic vibe (i instantly started thinking abt the next myth, but more on that later). plus, perhaps it's just me, but that specific image radiates loneliness – a sense of forced isolation and unwanted solitude, idk. i'm probably overthinking it. and Sylus' silhouette here is definitely not the one referencing his dragon myth. which means we might be getting a current tl perspective with reflections on the past.

foreshadowing? yes, please now onto the part i'm most excited abt.

every major story update is obviously the devs' chance to tie up previous clues and core narrative threads – all those crucial points and chekhov’s guns finally go off. but that's not all, what abt foreshadowing? it's the best time to start teasing future updates, esp when it comes to new limited myths. with Sylus' character development tempo and the timing of his content, i wouldn't be surprised to see hints of what his next myth could look like. i'm still betting on his anecdote tl. a cosmic conqueror with the Robin Hood agenda? sign me up. this kind of limited companion and setup both have insane potential. and going back to that gothic visual from the new event – what if we get a gothic/futuristic Sylus in his myth style-wise? i'm just widely speculating atp, but it sounds so good.

final thoughts to sum this up, i really hope y'all catching up on the story (or in the middle of it), cuz tomorrow's going to hit us hard. also, don't forget to manage your phone/tablet storage and clear space.

and just be ready for whatever is waiting for us there 🐦‍⬛

#love and deepspace sylus #sylus #lnds sylus #love and deepspace #l&ds sylus #lads sylus #yapping time is here again #so buckle up folks 🐦‍⬛

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foolish-watcher · 23 days ago

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DPxDC IDEA #2

So this is just an extention of my previous idea so Hear me out.

Danny Phantom didn’t just become King of the Infinite Realms. He earned it. Twice.

First, he took down Pariah Dark, the old undead tyrant who ruled with screaming banshees and bone dragons. Everyone thought that was the big moment. But nope. That was just level one.

The real test? Dan Phantom. His own future self, the version of him that broke, snapped, and drowned the world in ash. Danny faced him. Fought him. Chose to be better. Ripped the crown off his own worst fear and said:

“If I become you, then who’s left to stop me?” And then he won. And the Infinite Realms saw that and went: “Yeah. That’s our king.”

But here’s the kicker: the Infinite Realms isn’t just ghost limbo. It’s deeper. Weirder. It touches everywhere. It’s the spiritual backend of the multiverse. It’s where souls go when Death claims them, where stray ideas from Dream float by, where Destiny’s threads get tangled, where Delirium’s chaos paints the sky, where Despair weeps, where Desire whispers. It’s not one place—it’s all places in-between.

And now Danny’s running it. With a hoodie, glowing green eyes, and a very tired expression.

That’s when the Endless stepped in. They didn’t fight him. They didn’t test him. They just… looked at him. Saw what he’d done. What he was doing.

And they gave him a name.

Deliberation. Because Danny chooses. Always. He weighs, he wonders, he hesitates—and then he jumps in headfirst anyway, because someone has to.

He’s the eighth now. The unexpected sibling.

Delirium loves him.

She showed up in the Realms once, riding a fish made of television static, screamed “NEW BROTHERRRRRR!!!” and tackled him midair. Danny screamed, Fright Knight almost decapitated her out of reflex, and Clockwork just sipped tea like this was normal.

“You’re sticky,” Delirium giggled, clinging to Danny’s arm. “You’re real,” Danny blinked, “Wait, are you—are those shoes made of bees??”

They’ve been chaos buddies ever since.

Clockwork, of course, is one of Destiny’s tools. A soft-spoken failsafe. A little cheat code Destiny made in case things got too messy. He watches over Danny like a tired dad/grandpa/supervisor with a headache.

“You are exceeding your quota of nonsense,” Clockwork sighs. “You made me king of ghost limbo, what did you expect?” Danny deadpans.

Fright Knight? Used to belong to Dream. A nightmare that got kicked out for being too edgy. Now he stands guard outside Danny’s throne room like a very dramatic emo uncle.

And the Neverborn? Souls that were almost, but not quite. Not ready for life. Formed from ectoplasm and longing. Danny tries to help them move on, guide them into reincarnation. But some… just don’t fit. So he places them gently in the hands of the sibling they belong to.

“This one dreams in colors that don’t exist yet,” he tells Dream. “This one burns for things she’s never known,” he says to Desire. “This one… hurts too much,” he murmurs, and hands her to Despair.

He’s the bridge. The balance. The one who does the in-between work the others don’t see—or maybe choose not to.

And even if he never asked for this, even if the title weighs heavy, he still shows up every day.

The crown he wears isn’t gold. It’s choice.

#danny phantom #ghost king #the endless #danny is deliberation #ectoplasm is the duct tape of reality #delirium has a fish named taxes #clockwork is 500% done #fright knight is just a dream goth #neverborns deserve love too #danny’s eldritch sibling energy #he didn’t choose the afterlife king life but here we are #delirium calls him green bean and he just accepts it

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luckyroll3 · 9 days ago

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Mine Chapter 2

Mine Masterlist Previous Chapter

You stare at Chan's dimpled smile across the dinner table, the candlelight casting flickering shadows on his face. Your heart aches with unspoken questions, but your throat constricts each time you try to voice them.

"How was work today?" you ask instead, reaching for your wine glass.

Chan's eyes meet yours briefly before darting away. "Busy. The Johnson case is taking up all my time." He takes a large bite of pasta, chewing slowly.

You nod, trying to ignore the knot forming in your stomach. It's the third time this week he's mentioned work keeping him occupied. Your fingers tighten around the stem of your glass as you recall Liz's words from earlier: You need to talk to him about where this is going.

But you can't bring yourself to do it. Not yet.

Instead, you watch Chan closely as he eats, searching for clues in the way his shoulders tense slightly when you lean closer, how he checks his phone more frequently than usual.

"I was thinking we could go away this weekend," you venture. "That little B&B we loved last year has an opening."

Chan's fork pauses midway to his mouth. "This weekend? I don't know if I can get away with this case..."

"Oh." You force a smile. "No worries. It was just an idea." You take a slow slip of your wine and look away.

He reaches across the table to squeeze your hand, his touch warm and familiar. "Maybe next month when things calm down a bit."

You nod, clinging to the feeling of his skin against yours. See? He still cares. It's just work stress. Everything's fine.

But as Chan pulls his hand away to reach for his buzzing phone, you can't shake the chill that settles over you when the realization hits you. Next month, there’s a possibility he won’t even be here. You push the thought away and take another sip of wine, remembering how he held you close a couple days ago, whispering, "Love you," against your skin.

It has to be fine. It has to be.

****

The water runs in the bathroom as Chan showers. You're sprawled on the bed, idly flipping through a magazine, when a sudden vibration catches your attention. Chan's phone lights up on the bed, a few inches away from you, and your heart skips a beat as you glimpse the preview of the incoming text.

A photo. A woman. Skin.

The woman, wearing sexy black lingerie, his favorite color, and posed on her hands and knees with her large boobs prominently on display, catches your attention.

You know her. Claire. She’s a paralegal in his department.

Your fingers tremble as you reach for the device. You shouldn't. You know you shouldn't. But the gnawing doubt that's been eating at you for weeks propels you forward. The phone vibrates again. This time a message. The preview reads:

Claire: Hi Daddy.

You unlock the phone with a swipe. His pin has been the same for the past 5 years. You’ve never had the need to use it when he wasn’t around; trust has never been an issue between you. Your breath catches as you open the message thread and finish reading the most recent one.

Claire: Thinking about you. Hope you like the view.

"Oh, God," you whisper. Your vision blurs as you scroll through a cascade of intimate photos and flirtatious messages. "No, no, no..."

Your mind reels, unable to process the betrayal unfolding before your eyes. Chan's replies are just as explicit, filled with promises and plans for future encounters and what he’ll do to her.

"This can't be happening," you mutter, your voice raw. "How could he do this?"

Your fingers shake as you keep scrolling, each message a dagger to your heart. It's not just once. Not just a moment of weakness. This has been going on for weeks. It’s clear that they’ve met up several times outside of work and that they’ve had intimate encounters. More than that; they’ve fucked.

The sound of the shower stops, and panic grips you. You place the phone back exactly where it was, your mind a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Anger. Betrayal. Heartbreak. They crash over you in waves as you struggle to breathe.

What do I do now? you think to yourself as you look around the empty room, your world crumbling around you. You wasted five years of your life on someone you thought loved you more than anything. But now it all makes sense… the delays, his hesitations.

And you’re pissed.

Your heart pounds and you take a deep breath as you hear the bathroom door open, bracing yourself for the confrontation ahead.

Chan emerges, his hair damp and curly, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Any other time, the sight of his muscles and his skin glistening would have made your breath catch. Now, it only fuels your rage. He smiles when he sees you, oblivious to the emotions boiling inside you.

“Hey babe. You planning to shower? I didn’t use all the hot water this time,” he says casually with a grin as he grabs a t-shirt from his drawer in your dresser.

You stare at him, this man you thought you knew so well, now revealed as someone else entirely.

"Are you cheating on me?" The words burst from your lips, sharp and accusatory. Fuck sugarcoating; you need to get to the bottom of this immediately.

Chan freezes. He turns towards you, shirt half-pulled over his head. His warm brown eyes widen in shock. "What?” he asks incredulously, his voice laced with confusion and disbelief. "I... What are you talking about?"

You can see the panic flickering across his face, the way his muscles tense beneath his skin. It makes you sick.

Your eyes bore into his, flashing with anger and pain.

"Don't lie to me," you spit out, your voice quivering. "I saw the messages, Chan. The pictures. How long have you been fucking Claire behind my back?" you ask with gritted teeth.

You watch the color drain from his face. His mouth opens but no words come out.

He takes a step back, then tries to regain his composure. He pulls his shirt the rest of the way on. "I-I don't know what you're…"

"Stop!" You're shouting now. "Don't fucking lie to me!" you yell, hurling his phone at him. He catches it easily, clutching it against his stomach. “I deserve the truth. Why? Why would you do this to me? To us?"

Chan's shoulders slump, the fight draining out of him. "I... I'm sorry," he whispers as he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and the admission shatters something inside you.

"Sorry isn't good enough," you say, your voice breaking. "How could you? I trusted you," you choke out. "I gave you everything. I thought we were happy. I thought we had a future."

Chan runs a hand through his hair, his expression torn between guilt and frustration. "That's just it," he says, his voice low. "The future. It's always looming, isn't it? The expectations, the pressure…"

You cut him off, incredulous. "Pressure? What pressure?” You finally stand up and point at him. “I've never pushed you for anything!"

"Not explicitly, no," Chan responds, his voice rising. "But it's always there, no? The talk of settling down, of marriage, of kids, of building a life together. It's suffocating!"

His words hit you like a physical blow. You stumble back, your mind reeling. "So this is my fault? Because I dared to imagine a future with the man I love and have been committed to for five fucking years of my life?!" You’re fuming now, the anger rolling off your body in waves.

Chan's face contorts with regret. "No, that's not what I meant. I just... I don't know if I'm ready for all that. I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

The realization dawns on you, cold and cruel. His distance. The job offer he’s considering that he didn’t bother to talk to you about. You bring your palm to cover your face.

"You never saw a future with me, did you?" you whisper, your heart breaking all over again. You turn your back to him. "What did you think came next? All this time, I've been dreaming for both of us." He remains quiet. “You think you’re the only one who’s been offered promotions somewhere else?” You shake your head as you face him again. “Rich that I always considered the impact to you but I never even registered as a concern when you had the same options.” You chuckle, but it’s devoid of any humor.

You stare at Chan, truly seeing him for the first time. The warm brown eyes that once held such promise now seem hollow, the dimpled smile that used to melt your heart now a mask of deception. His muscular frame, usually so comforting, now feels like a threat, trapping you in this nightmare.

"You know what? Fuck you Chan,” you say calmly. “You're not the man I thought you were." Your voice is barely above a whisper. "I don't even know who you are anymore. Your mother would be fucking ashamed of the son she raised." That last one is a petty shot because you know how much of a mama's boy he is, but you don't care at this point.

Chan starts moving towards you with urgency, his hand outstretched and trembling as he reaches for you. His voice quivers as he speaks. "Please, let me explain…"

You recoil from his touch, a surge of anger replacing your shock. "Explain what? How you've been lying to me? How you’ve been planning your escape from me? How you've been fucking some other bitch while telling me you love me every night?"

"I do love you," Chan insists, his eyes pleading. "This doesn't change that."

A bitter laugh escapes your lips. "Love? You don't even know the meaning of the word." You take a deep breath, steeling yourself for what comes next. "Yeah… we're done, Chan. This relationship is over."

His face crumples, the reality of your words sinking in. "No. Please! We can work this out. I'll do better, I promise."

"There's nothing to work out," you say, your voice gaining strength. "You've made your choice, and now I'm making mine. I deserve better than this shit. Better than you."

Chan's desperation turns to anger. "So that's it? You're just throwing away everything we've built?"

"You threw it away the moment you decided to stick your dick in someone else. And you just confirmed we have nothing, no future. So what is there to save???" you spit back. "Get the fuck out of my house."

He stands there, frozen, as if he can't believe this is happening. "You don't mean that. You can't…"

The rage bubbles up inside you, threatening to consume you whole. "I said GET OUT!" you scream, your composure finally shattering like a glass vase hitting the floor. You grab his bag, haphazardly tossed on the foot of your bed, and shove it into his arms with all your strength. As he stumbles back slightly, shocked, you stride over to his open drawer and yank out a pair of his sweatpants. Without hesitation, you fling them at him as hard as you can into his face. "Leave! Now!"

Chan flinches at your outburst, then slowly turns and walks out of the bedroom, his head hanging low. He pauses at the front door to pull on the sweatpants and his sneakers, tossing the towel he had wrapped around himself onto the back of the couch. He opens the door and exits, but glances back at you one last time. His eyes are filled with sorrow and apology. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

You meet his gaze, unflinching. "You sure are," you reply, and slam the door in his face.

The sound of the door hitting the frame echoes through your body, reverberating in your chest like a hollow drum. You press your back against the cool wood, sliding down until you're sitting on the floor, knees pulled tight to your chest. The silence of the house is deafening, broken only by your ragged breathing.

Your eyes dart around the room, taking in the remnants of your life with Chan. His leather jacket draped over the armchair, his half-empty coffee mug on the side table, his 50 lb dumbbells in the corner, a small collection of his shoes lined up neatly to the right of you; all relics of a relationship now shattered.

"What now?" you whisper to the empty space, your voice trembling.

Your fingers brush against your collarbone, tracing the spot where Chan's lips had been just an hour ago. The memory of his touch sends a shiver down your spine, a bittersweet reminder of what you've lost.

You close your eyes, inhaling deeply. The faint scent of Chan's cologne still lingers in the air, mixing with the acrid taste of betrayal on your tongue.

"I should have known," you mutter, anger and self-doubt warring within you. "How could I have been so blind?"

Your mind races, replaying every moment of your relationship, searching for clues you might have missed. The late nights at work, the guarded phone calls, the subtle distance that had grown between you; it all seems so obvious now.

You clench your fists, nails digging into your palms. Was I not enough? Not pretty enough, not smart enough, not...? you think to yourself.

The questions tumble out, each one a dagger to your self-esteem. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror across the room. You look tired and distraught; your eyes are watery with tears that you’ve been holding back, the drops threatening to spill. For a moment, you barely recognize the woman staring back at you.

"No," you say firmly out loud to the empty room, meeting your own gaze in the mirror. "This isn't about me. This is about him. His weakness. His betrayal. FUCK. HIM."

You stand up slowly, legs shaky but resolve strengthening. Walking to the bedroom, you begin pulling Chan's things from the closet, tossing them onto the bed.

"I deserve better," you say aloud, your voice growing stronger with each word. "I will be better."

As you work, the adrenaline that's been fueling you begins to ebb. The weight of what's happened settles on your shoulders, and suddenly, it's too much to bear.

You sink onto the bed, surrounded by the debris of your relationship, and finally let the tears come.

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leather-n-velvet · 6 months ago

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High & Low: Part III

A Drew Starkey x singer/actress!OC SMAU

Summary: While on hiatus from touring and wanting to branch out with her career, Ivy Blake auditions for OBX, immediately hitting it off with none other than Drew Starkey during their chemistry read. As tension and drama brew between the two, can they get through the highs and lows that come with fame and relationships together?

A/N: Thank you for all the love on the previous parts! I'm starting to get a little more confident in this series. This part does include a tiny little blurb. It's been a while since I've actually written anything so bare with me! This is the first part I'm pretty pleased about. Enjoy!

Dividers by: @cafekitsune ⭐️🌙

Previous part // Masterlist

madelyncline

Liked by ivyblake, madisonbaileybabe, and 1,438,997 others.

madelyncline last day/night with all of us together (just missing JD) for a while. excuse me while I cry. 😭

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ivyblake CRYING IN THE CLUB RN

madisonbaileybabe 🩷🩷

user9 they’re all so gorgeous wtf

User6 is that 9th picture Drew and ivy??? UGH I LOVE THEM

This post has been deleted.

Ivy sat across Drew's lap watching their friends dance and have the time of their lives. It was bitter sweet, having this one last night together before they went their separate ways for a bit. Ivy's heart was heavy knowing that she only had a mere 24 hours before she had to leave for LA for some writing sessions with another artist.

She was excited to get back into her music, but leaving everyone, Drew especially, was not something she was looking forward to.

She turned to him, taking in his sharp jawline, the way his blue eyes practically glowed under the lights in the bar. A familiar feeling stirred low in her stomach, making her tighten her hand that was threading through his hair.

She could feel, rather than hear Drew's low groan vibrating through his chest before he gripped her hip, leaning in closer to her ear. "Don't start something you can't finish, angel."

"Stay with me tonight?" She breathed, scratching his scalp, cheeks pressed close together.

He pulled back, looking her in the eyes, seeing that raw want and need within them. His grip tightened around her waist, feeling his pants start to tighten at the prospect of what the evening could hold. "You sure?"

"More than anything."

Ivy’s phone:

drewstarkey

Liked by ivyblake, odessaazion, and 875,098 others.

drewstarkey 📸: Dranks: a series by @/ivyblake

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ivyblake probably my best work yet. i have such an eye for photography, i'm telling you

drewstarkey truly an artist in every aspect

User3 he’s so unserious, I love it

ivyblake

Liked by haley_james, drewstarkey, and 1,088,988 others.

ivyblake feeling inspired 🩵

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TheIvyLeague THIS IS NOT A DRILL EVERYONE

IvyBlakeUpdates MOTHER IS WRITING MOTHER IS WRITING

user1 NEW ALBUM INCOMING

user3 OHHHH THIS IS ABOUT TO BE GOOD

hater1 I just know she's only using drew to write songs

user5 ummm.... most song writers write about their life experiences sooooo idk what ur point is here???

A/N: Please let me know what you think! My inbox is always open! Feedback really helps keep me going and inspired and I'd love to hear any thoughts/comments you have so far or maybe even what you'd like to see in future parts! Also, let me know if you’d like to be added to a tag list! Thank you for reading!

#drew starkey #drew starkey smau #drew starkey blurb #drew starkey x oc #drew starkey angst #drew starkey fanfic #drew starkey fic #drew starkey fluff #drew starkey imagines #drew starkey fanfiction #drew starkey imagine #drew starkey one shot #drew starkey one shots #drew starkey social media au #drew starkey scenario

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mazuriri · 1 year ago

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4.6 update

I'm continuing my thread on Lyney x traveller since Lyney can’t stop showing his ‘feelings’ 👏 (and I write here because I've run out of space to put photos in the other thread).

＊ Arlecchino’s story quest :

During Arlecchino’s quest, it was predictable to come across Lyney and his siblings, along with the inevitable moments shared between the magician and the traveler. Their paths crossed right at the start of the quest in Poisson, with Lyney who calls them from a distance.

The introduction of Lyney x Traveler right from the beginning of the quest is just heartwarming. It's truly delightful to witness their joyous reunion after being apart for such a long time. One cannot help but notice Lyney's excitement as he spots the Traveler from a distance and eagerly call out to them, and the Traveler reciprocating the same gesture is simply heart-melting.

As a fan of this ship, these small actions hold great significance for me. The previous interactions between them have paved the way for a newfound sense of friendliness, which is beautifully exemplified by the Traveler's warm greeting "It's been too long." This reunion with Lyney marks a significant milestone in their relationship, showcasing the evolution of their bond.

The traveler's arrival never fails to ignite a spark of joy in Lyney. This has been demonstrated multiple times and it is remarkable how this simple encounter can instantly brighten his entire day. What is truly comforting is that Lyney doesn’t hide his enthusiasm, openly expressing his delight at their reunion in Poisson.

According to him, this encounter seem destined, as if fate itself has orchestrated them.

After Arlecchino proposed that the traveler should stay in Poisson for a while, she then requested Lyney to entertain the guests, to which Lyney willingly agreed, expressing that it had always been his dream to welcome the traveler into his home and introduce them to his siblings. While others may have different dreams, Lyney's dream was centered around introducing his family to the traveler, as family holds immense importance to him. He had previously expressed his desire to invite the traveler to his home, considering them as a part of his own family. Now, in this quest, his long-awaited dream has finally come true.

(Now his dream has come true, will he have a dream to ask the traveler in marriage lol?)

This guy meticulously explained his process in Poisson, only to discover that it presented an ideal opportunity to exhibit his culinary skills to the traveler. Of course, Lyney... Go above and beyond to leave an even greater impression, as if your magic tricks weren't already enough.

Also dear magician… Other people have something else to do than show their talent in cooking 🤨 (Maybe he wants to be a skilled husband who can cook for his beloved in the future LOL)

As Lyney prepared to hand over the supplies, Chapleau was rendered speechless and filled with astonishment upon coming face to face with the famous traveler and Paimon, whose names had been circulating extensively in discussions among everyone.

Throughout the encounter, Lyney appeared either irritated or nonchalant, emitting an aura of "Dude... there's no need to be so shocked" or "Hey, don't stare at my crush like that" (Could it be that he was feeling jealous? 🤨 There are various interpretations of his expression in that moment, but let's assume it's jealousy lol). He even cautioned him and the other children to refrain from potentially annoying or frightening the traveler and Paimon.

(Let’s not forget that he was the one who was excited to introduce his siblings to the traveler and look what face he makes lmao, he can’t be more obvious.)

The traveler has gained immense popularity, and it is all thanks to Arlecchino and Lyney. Both of them constantly talk about the traveler, and Lyney never misses a chance to mention them. Arlecchino, on the other hand, not only talks about the traveler but also brings up Lyney in her conversations. It is amusing to see how Arlecchino knows about the bond between her son and the traveler share. (I will come back later about Arlecchino's perspective on their relationship)

This has led to children being well-informed about the traveler, with Arlecchino and Lyney playing a significant role in spreading awareness about the traveler's presence.

You know what’s the funny part? The irony lies in the fact that Lyney previously mentioned the traveler's fame within the organization, which raises the question of who is truly responsible for their popularity. It is evident that the traveler's popularity is attributed to the detailed accounts provided by Lyney and Arlecchino, as confirmed by the children during their conversation (because they told so much about the traveler according to Foltz and Chapleau.)

Lyney my boy… there is no way to avoid the children because it is evident that you have been discussing the traveler's actions quite often. This is why they are so well-informed about the situation. Alrecchino also contributes to this knowledge by frequently mentioning Lyney and how the traveler has been of great assistance to them.

Following Freminet's disclosure regarding Clervie, Lyney opts to engage in a private discussion with him in a secluded corner to address familial matters. The traveler and Paimon detect the escalating tension between the two and grow apprehensive. Consequently, they make the decision to intervene in order to avert any potential conflict that may arise between Lyney and Freminet during their conversation.

Paimon emphasizes the bond of friendship among the group, highlighting the shared experiences they have already gone through. What made me smile throughout was that the Traveler immediately agreed with Paimon and didn't hesitate to help Lyney and Freminet. Unlike in the past, there is no trace of doubt or suspicion, they were ready to offer their assistance. As they say, sometimes guests can be useful and Lyney immediately understood what they meant.

The Traveler's bond with Lyney and their siblings has been solidified as one of friendship and care, leading them to offer their help despite the dangerous circumstances. Lyney, aware of the risks involved, attempted to dissuade the Traveler from getting involved, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the Traveler remained steadfast in their decision to stand by their friends. They just couldn't abondon the siblings, and that's the traveler we all know.

Lyney finds himself at a loss for words, but he expresses his sincere gratitude to the traveler for their assistance once again. The traveler's willingness to help in such a situation deeply touches Lyney, and he is truly moved by their continuous support. The numerous times the traveler has come to Lyney's aid have left an indelible mark on his memory, and he feels an immense sense of gratitude towards them. Each action taken by the traveler holds a special place in Lyney's heart, as he genuinely cares about their well-being. Despite his initial concern for the traveler's safety and his desire to shield them from harm, Lyney understands that they are not easily swayed by his protective gestures. As I mentioned before, he really wanted to keep them out of it, but knowing them for a while now, Lyney already knows they wouldn't easily accept what he would propose.

It is in this moment that he utters the heartfelt words, "I'll protect you like my life depends on it." This statement reflects Lyney's unwavering commitment to safeguarding the traveler, even if it means putting his own life at risk. He is truly willing to protect them at all costs, even if it means putting his own life in danger. He only cares about his family, including the traveler since Lyney considers them family too. It may seem very sweet at first but if we delve deeper, Lyney's words reveals a profound level of care.

• Do you remember when Wriothesley 'kidnapped' Lynette, causing Lyney to panic as he was ready to give himself to Wriothesley in exchange for Lynette’s release. In Arlecchino’s quest, he became upset with Freminet for putting his own life in 'danger' with Clervie's situation. Although Lyney said that the others will be punished by Arlecchino, he was especially really worried about Freminet, showing genuine concern for him. Lyney's deep-rooted fear of losing his siblings is palpable, as he cherishes them dearly and is willing to go to great lengths to protect them, showcasing a touching and sad aspect of his character. We already know that this is not the first time that Lyney has acted in this way, we have already been aware for a long time that Lyney will not hesitate to put his life at risk for his siblings.

However, it remains unclear whether Lyney values his own life or not, but what is certain is that he is ready to sacrifice his life for his loved ones.

(Here for example, Lyney immediately threw himself to protect Lynette before Freminet blocked Arlecchino's attack.)

Personally, I have the urge to give him a wake-up call and remind him that his life holds just as much value, urging him to be cautious. This is the reason why Lynette became angry with him during this quest, and I can empathize with her. Let's be honest, Lyney's actions come off as self-centered : he chooses to deal with the situation 'alone' and doesn't want Lynette to know (same situation in Lynette hangout), but unfortunately, she was there the whole time and got angry at everyone, especially Freminet and Lyney. (I swear their siblings relationship makes me emotional)

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Upon knowing the secret activities that had been occurring behind her back, Arlecchino resolved to take matters into her own hands. However, just as she was on the verge of initiating her plan, Lyney stepped in to intervene and prevent the situation from escalating further (with Freminet, Lynette and Chapleau). Regrettably, their efforts proved to be in vain. Nevertheless, Arlecchino decided to change tactics : they have to fight her.

Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet all agree to this, prompting the traveler to recall the consideration given to them by Arlecchino. Before the punishment, she had asked for a consideration from the traveler and had clearly stated that when the time comes, they must make the appropriate choice when the time comes. Now, that moment came at the time of the punishment of the members of the house.

The traveler carefully considers Arlecchino’s words and because they had made a promise to do so, they ultimately make the choice to support Lyney and the siblings by joining them in battle. It brought a smile to my face to see that the traveler had decided to fight alongside Lyney and the others, as they too didn’t want to witness the 'traitors' get killed, which is understandable. However, their motivation was also to assist Lyney and show respect for his decision. Lyney is also taken aback by the traveler's decision to join them, and I am confident that he will appreciate and acknowledge their actions.

✨ Extra :

I hadn’t mentioned it in my previous thread but I have now made the decision to address this topic and delve into Arlecchino's perspective on the traveler.

Lyney's trust in the traveler is a significant revelation, especially considering his usual guarded nature towards others. This newfound openness towards the traveler showcases a level of comfort and confidence that Lyney rarely displays with anyone else, making it a noteworthy point in their relationship.

The significance of Lyney's statement to Arlecchino, where he identifies the traveler as the person he trusts the most, cannot be understated. Arlecchino, being well-acquainted with her children, understands the weight of these words and the depth of trust that Lyney has placed in the traveler. This revelation sheds light on the unique bond between Lyney and the traveler, highlighting the exceptional level of trust that exists between them, a bond that transcends Lyney's usual reservations towards others.

In the house, each individual see themselves as “family”, prioritizing their connections over engaging with the outside world. Arlecchino emphasizes the significance of regarding a stranger as a family, highlighting the gravity of this notion. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that they are fatui and opening up to other people outside the house is crucial. Arlecchino understands that the children, particularly Lyney, hold an affection for the traveler. Therefore, when she emphasizes the importance of the traveler valuing this friendship, she warns the traveler to take this friendship seriously, that they should not break this relationship or it could lead to unfavorable consequences.

Arlecchino, after careful consideration, decided to place her ‘trust’ in Lyney and the other siblings. She effectively conveys to the traveler the depth of friendship that exists between Lyney and his siblings, emphasizing its significance. The traveler, having witnessed this bond, is not only accepting of it but also respects and admires Lyney's relationship with his siblings.

They literally have the blessing from Arlecchino since she supports and respect them. With the 'Father' now endorsing the friendship her son shares with the traveler, and Lynette supports what her brother feels (she told the traveler to take care of him many times), Lyney is indeed fortunate to have the blessings and support of both his ‘Father’ and sister. So….

When is the marriage lol?

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That's all for this analysis, it was to be expected to have moments between Lyney and the traveler in Arlecchino's quest, I mean... it was OBLIGED. It is now evident that the Traveler considers Lyney and his siblings as genuine friends and is willing to assist them in any situation, despite their affiliation with the Fatui.

Speaking of which, Arlecchino expressed her intention to make Lyney the next 'King' of the house if he stays, to which Lyney reluctantly agrees. Throughout the conversation, the Traveler remained silent, not objecting at all, simply listening throughout the conversation. Despite the fact that the house is part of the Fatui, the Traveler respects Lyney's decision. The development between them is remarkable, and I am pleased to see the Traveler finally opening up to Lyney despite their past, always being there for him and his siblings. Their friendship is truly endearing, and that's why I love them. Everything they have overcome in the past is now ‘resolved’, and they are always happy to reunite.

Despite the focus being primarily on Arlecchino in her quest, Lyney and the others played a significant role, and their contributions were exceptional.

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daargraves · 1 month ago

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Martin's dad has a lot of potential as a character. Canonically he's probably just a normal bastard that left his family because his wife is sick, but the fact that he was mentioned in the first place can lead to so many different possibilities.

One of the biggest theory is that Martin's dad is Jurgen Leitner (stupid idiot motherfucking Jurgen Leitner). Which is hilarious but also kinda fucked up considering Martin was the one who found his body. This theory is stems from Mikaele's comment that Martin reminds him of a young Jurgen, which most likely more reffering to his attitude rather than his appearance, but some people took it in a more literal way. Jonny and Alex themselves said that "it's not what they were going for but if it make sense then sure", so it's more of a "it can be true if you want it to be". On a story standpoint this is a very interesting scenario, which also kinda tied Martin to The Fears more and giving his dad another reason to leave, perhaps to protect his family or just plainly running away. Timeline wise his library was destroyed when Martin is 7, which make him leaving the family and disappearing from the public's eye potentially happened at the same time, roughly. But canonically speaking it's very unlikely since Jon would recognize him, as Martin and his dad looks identical to each other, unless Jurgen became so wrinkly and old that he doesn't look like him anymore.

Then there's a few that theorize that Peter is Martin's dad, which make less sense than the previous one. Unlike Jurgen who only met Jon and doesn't know about Martin at all, Peter is actively meeting Martin, they face each other almost everyday for like a year or so, and Martin at that point know he looks like his dad. And let's be honest, do you really think Peter Lukas would have a relationship long enough to a have a child and only left when the child is 8/9? I also feel like if Peter is Martin's dad, he would use that very often when converting Martin to The Lonely, "Martin, I am your dad, which mean that you are a Lukas by blood, which mean you are perfect for The Lonely :)". Hell, why would he left in the first place, wouldn't Martin grow up with the other Lukases if that's the case?

"Who's Martin's dad" does have a potential of a "oh shit, really??" reveal. Not a lot of candidate, sure, but still, depending on who it is could be an unexpected plot twist. But there's also another aspect of his character that can be an interesting storyline. "What happened to Martin's dad afterwards".

I'd love to read more fics about Martin finding out what happened to his dad, maybe even meeting him again, for the angst, of course. Maybe he got a new family, maybe he's still alone and miserable. Maybe he doesn't want anything to do with Martin anymore, only seeing him as a failure, maybe he even pretends to not recognize him, or maybe he wants to reconnect with his son after those years. Maybe he's already dead, from a fight or an accident or whatever, or maybe.. because of The Fears.

When that happened mostly people made it to be The Lonely. Kinda ironic, isn't it? His dad got taken by The Lonely and he himself was a part of it in the future. Other Fears has potential too, anything can happen to anyone afterall. Or maybe he became an avatar. I've seen this one fanfic where he became a part of The Corruption and that's so interesting.

Overall I would love to maybe write something with Martin's dad. I love to write about Martin, really, his past was told enough but at the same time not enough. He has a sick mom that hated him and his dad left them when he was young, but other than that it's free-range. His dad is one of the loose thread that Jonny and Alex deliberately left hanging, and I would love to explore it more. - 💻

#fandomtalk #tma #the magnus archives #rambles #martin blackwood #martin's dad

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imagines--galore · 1 year ago

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||The Thread of Fate|| Part Eleven

Summary: Soulmate AU. They say the Thread of Fate connects you to your one true love. It may tangle. It may stretch. But it will never break. Wrapped around your little finger it tightens when it feels your soulmate is close and loosens when they are far. And becomes visible with the colors of your soulmate’s Nation when you finally fall in love with them.

Pairing: Zuko x OroraOC (ATLA)

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T+ Romance. Adventure.

Previous Chapters - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten,

A/N: Omg I had such a HUGE influx of readers for this story, and I am grateful to each and every one of you for reading my story! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and all the others I will be writing in the future.

Working at the tea shop was Orora's first time at a job. She was just as green to it as Zuko was. However, she did not voice her disgust at the notion every few seconds. She was eager to learn, and ready to earn her living. As much as she appreciated the money Iroh had given her, she wanted to contribute to their financial situation as well.

The first day had been busy. There had been the different types of teas she had to learn to brew, other then the ones she already knew thanks to her Master. Then there were dishes to wash almost constantly. Not a lot of customers had come in that day, Pao having closed the shop early to allow his new employees to get to know their work place, so it hadn't been as tiring as she had thought it would be.

What Orora found she liked to do, was wash the dishes. She got to play with water and bubbles, and it helped calm her. Strange, she knew, but after so many days of being on the run, doing something as simple as washing dishes was oddly calming. Not to mention the job allowed her mind to roam and ponder over things she had not allowed herself to for quite some time now.

As she set aside one of the more expensive looking cups, the young waterbender sighed softly through her nose.

So far the truce she had offered Zuko seemed to be working. Though it had only been a few hours since it had been put into effect. And they'd only managed to snap at each other twice. True after the second time Iroh had seen the wisdom in separating them by giving them jobs to do at different ends of the shop. Zuko worked the front, taking orders and such, while Orora washed the dishes in the back.

Picking up a plate and dunking it in the soapy water, Orora continued to let her thoughts wander and ask the questions she wished she could say out loud.

Such as why were Zuko and Iroh fugitives of the Fire Nation? They were royalty, surely the Fire Lord would want his brother and son back. And did Zuko's sister truly want to kill her own Uncle? That thought sent a shiver down her spine. But what about their mother? Didn't she have a say in all of this? Was she treated just like Orora's mother was treated?

She had so many questions, and more, and all she wanted to do was march right up to Zuko and demand that he answer them.

But something held her back.

Maybe because she was a polite person who didn't go about poking her nose in other people's business.

Or perhaps, more likely, she had no desire to cause Zuko any pain by talking about his past. It was surely a sore subject, from the bits and pieces of information she had collected over the months. Besides, he already had his hands full trying to adjust to living in Ba Sing Se. Orora just wished he would figure himself out faster so she could ask all her questions.

Oh, she could ask Iroh if she wanted to, and her would probably answer, but for some insane reason, she wanted the answers to come from Zuko himself.

Spirit help her but she felt it was the right thing since it was his story.

Memories of every encounter she had ever had with the young prince rose unbidden, yet not unwelcome in her mind, as she started to play with the water not having any more dishes to wash.

It was strange, how someone she had not even known a few months ago was now at the very center of her life. He wasn't all that she thought about, really this was the first time she was allowing herself to think of him to such an extent. Usually she had other things to think about. Such as surviving, learning from her Master, perfecting her water bending techniques, inventing new ways to incorporate ice into her fighting, improving on her combat skills, restocking her medicinal herbs, making sure she didn't loose touch with her healing side, because as much as she liked to put her waterbending skills to use by fighting, she knew healing was a major part of who she was.

All those thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind, as she focused on a pair of golden eyes that seemed to watch her wherever she went, watching her every step. At first she had thought, it was perhaps because he didn't trust her. But slowly, that mistrust in his eyes had faded. Now, when she would catch him looking at her, he would look away.

Then again, who was she to complain. She looked at him and had been caught looking at him by him on multiple occasion.

Her fingers continued to twirl, her gaze listless as she created pretty patterns in the water.

She thought of the night when they had first met, officially at least. When he had tried to rob her. She could still recall every detail with a clarity that surprised even her.

She contemplated on their little sparring session and the conversation after it, how she had encouraged him to find something to live for, to fight for.

She recalled how shocked she had been when she realized his true identity. A prince. An honest to goodness prince. One who couldn't stand her, and who she couldn't stand either.

At least, she thought that was the case.

Her mind conjured the moment where she had first touched his scar. How vulnerable he had looked, and yet he had trusted her enough to not push her away. The way he had protected her when they were at the Oasis. The conversation they had shared while bathing. That one brought a fierce blush to her cheeks. And despite her best effort to move on to the next one, she found the blush only intensifying as she remembered the moment they had shared on the mountain.

Where they had acknowledged that they were soulmates. Where he had gripped her wrist, so desperately and yet so soft. Where she had wandered how his lips would feel against her own. And she was sure he had been thinking the same.

After all, hadn't he leaned forward slightly before the elements of nature had tread on their moment?

So lost in her thoughts, that she didn't even sense as someone else entered her work area and stood next to her. Watching her.

"Uncle says its time to go now."

The voice jolted her out of her thoughts, scaring her so much that she jumped where she stood. Her bending reacted out of instinct, mirroring her startled emotion as her hand shot a splash of water on the figure standing next to her.

"Spirits! You startled me!" She panted, resting a hand above her heart. Zuko glowered at her in return, water dripping from his hair and onto his shoulders. The girl winced, pursing her lips to hide a smile, though it still escaped. She couldn't help it, he just looked utterly ridiculous.

At his warning growl, she couldn't help but giggle. A strange sound since it hardly ever came from her. "Sorry, here." Quickly bending the water, she threw it back into the sink and gave him an apologetic smile. His glare did not let up.

"We're done here for the day. Lets go." He grumbled, before making for the door. She rolled her eyes. Clearly he wasn't too pleased with her little reaction. As he stomped off, she called after him, removing her apron as she went. "I said I was sorry!"

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Their new home was a small apartment, just big enough for the three of them. As soon as they returned, Orora quickly settled in the middle of the room, wanting to get in an hour of meditation before bed. She crossed her legs, closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap and evened out her breathing.

Which left Iroh to brew some more tea for them, and for Zuko to lay on the sofa, hands tucked behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling, his mind going over the day's event.

A job. For once in his life, he was actually working for a living. The notion had seemed strange at first, not to mention he had felt that it was beneath him, but what Orora had said was true. They did need jobs if they were to survive in this city.

Reluctantly, his gaze flickered to the water tribe girl as she sat meditating peacefully, oblivious to the effect she had had on him.

Him. Prince of the Fire Nation. Being effected by the words of a commoner.

Or rather, he was being effected by the words of a girl who was his soulmate.

Letting out a silent groan, his hand came up to press the back of his hand against his eyes, as if to physically stop him from staring too long at her. It was starting to get pathetic, just how much he would want her opinion on things.

He wouldn't go so far as to say he wanted her to approve of him, but it was pleasant to have someone else beside his Uncle give him a little wisdom. He spoke of life in riddles and words that were heavy with emotion.

Orora?

She would give it straight to his face. No regard of his feelings, his stand on whatever topic it was. She would just come out and say it.

And he appreciated her for that.

True he never always liked what she said, but sometimes they were the exact words he needed to hear.

Like the talk they had had after their impromptu battle near that lake. He still hadn't found something to live for, or to fight for, but at least he knew that he was looking for something.

Not to mention the fact that he would be ever grateful to her for saving Uncle's life. He would never say it outright, but in that moment he had been so so scared and she had stepped up and healed Iroh. Even after getting to know who they were and the lies she had been led to believe for so long.

And how she had probably saved him that stormy night on the mountain. A moment of weakness on his part, letting his emotions get the best of him, but she'd been there. She'd been where he needed her to be, and had not held back when telling him off for being so reckless.

He had to stop his thoughts there, not wanting to dwell too much on what would've happened if that moment in the rain had gone on any longer.

And then there was the truce. To live together somewhat harmoniously.

Lifting his hand, he looked at her again, watching her face. She looked so calm in that moment, as opposed to the plethora of emotions that always played about her features. Zuko found he was beginning to think of it as a game. A game where he would try to guess what she would feel next, and whether it would effect him in some way.

So far, almost every emotion she felt was directed at him, and though he would never ever admit it out loud, he kind of liked having her attention be on him rather then anything else.

Huffing to himself, as if disgusted with his own thoughts, he rose to his feet, moving to the pantry to see what he could have for dinner.

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"Orora, my dear." Glancing up from where she had been counting the money of the customer who had just paid, the young waterbender gave Iroh a nod. "Yes Master?"

"We seem to have run out of Jasmine. I have asked Pao and he says to take some money from the till and buy some Jasmine tea from the shop just down the street."

Taking the money, Orora quickly nodded, before rushing to the back of the shop where Zuko was on dish washing duty. Seeing her taking off her apron, he frowned. "Where're you going?"

Straightening her clothes, the girl replied. "Ran out of Jasmine, just going to buy some." She had barely made it to the door when Zuko called out. "Wait, I'm supposed to go with you when you go out into the city."

Orora glanced over her shoulder, rolling her eyes slightly. "Relax Your Highness. Its only a five minute walk, nothing is going to happen to me." She opened the door, moving to step outside, but then she paused.

"Although, it is sweet of you to worry about me." She glanced over at him, a smile on her lips as she caught sight of the obvious flush on his cheeks as he looked at anything but her. "I'll be back soon." She said as a way of promise, before she was out of the tea shop.

It was a five minute walk, and once the goods were secured, the girl began to make her way back to the shop, her heart still warm at the prospect of Zuko actually worrying about her.

Her happy thoughts, however, were interrupted rather rudely when a hard hand grabbed her shoulder, yanking her into a dark alley, covering her mouth with a rough hand.

The instant she felt the unfamiliar hands, she began to struggle and push with all her strength, trying to get away.

"Stop moving!" A voice hissed, a very familiar voice.

Her eyes focused in the dark, and she was able to make out the face of the boy they had met on the way to Ba Sing Se.

The Freedom Fighter, Jet.

Her pale blue eyes narrowed, and a look akin to a cold anger burned in the gaze she fixed him with. "Look I just want to talk, that's all." He said, still not letting up from where he had his hand on her mouth.

She continued to glare at him, even after he had removed his hand, though his other kept an almost painful grip on her wrist. "I'm trying to help you. You're a waterbender, there's no way you would be with those firebenders of your own free will, so they must be keeping you prisoner somehow."

He knows, a voice hissed in her mind, prompting her heart to beat faster in her chest, and an ugly feeling of fear to coil in her stomach. But she didn't let it show.

Instead, she remained the epitome of disgust and anger. "What in the world are you talking about?"

There seemed to be an almost manic look in his eyes, accompanied by impatience, as he dropped her hand, and grabbed her shoulders. "You don't have to lie for them. I'm trying to help you. I just need evidence and then we can end those two firebenders."

End?! Spirits! He wanted to kill Iroh and Zuko.

Shrugging out of his grasp, Orora stepped away, fingers pulling the cork of her water satchel in case she needed to defend herself. "You're out of your mind." She growled at him. Despite the terror she felt at hearing his statement, her instinct to protect her two companions was far potent, which was the reason she was even able to face the boy with murder in his eyes.

"Just admit the truth! They're firebenders! And they deserve to die." He was starting to get frustrated with her. "I don't care what you say, I will find some way to expose them, and when I do, I'll have the pleasure of executing them."

Hearing those words, hearing the tone in his voice, the sheer hatred and anger in his eyes. Something in her snapped.

With a fierce cry she threw her arm out, the movement elegant yet deadly, given that Jet found himself staring at the very sharp ends of multiple icicles that she pointed in his direction.

"This is your first and last warning." She hissed, her voice full of warning. "If you come near them, if you so much as harm a single hair on their head, I will personally see to it that you pay for it." She fixed him with a cold stare. "In blood."

So saying, she turned her back to him, leaving him trapped behind her icicles. They would melt soon enough, though the words Jet called after her as she walked away, echoed in her ears all the way back to the tea shop.

"You would threaten someone who's on your side. You're willing to protect the enemy?! You're a traitor to your own people. A disgrace! You're just like them! A killer!"

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As soon as she reached the back door of the tea shop, Orora leaned up against the wooden door. Her heart was beating so fast, she was afraid it would somehow burst out of her chest. A stinging sensation behind her eyes told her she was close to tears. Lifting a trembling hand, she pressed it to face, willing herself to calm down.

She had to warn Zuko and Iroh, make sure they were on guard. She couldn't let anything happen to them. They were her friends. She cared about them. Both of them.

Somehow, she managed to calm herself down, slightly, and entered the shop. It had taken her a good fifteen minute to calm down. Grabbing her apron, she tied it behind her in a haphazard manner before rushing out to the front of the shop.

There was Iroh, pouring tea for a customer, with Zuko picking up cups left behind by a previous customer. She all but stumbled forward, catching Zuko's hand, prompting him to look at her, confused and slightly alarmed at her obvious panicked state.

"Orora? Wha-"

But she didn't let him finish. "He knows." She whispered, aware of the other customers around her. "Jet knows." The words were spoken so softly that no one else could ever hear them, and yet Zuko did. Loud and clear.

However, before either of them could talk further on what she had revealed, the door of the shop slammed open and Jet himself walked in. A strangled gasp left her lips, as she caught sight of that murderous look in his eyes once more.

"I'm tired of waiting!" He pointed an accusing finger at both Iroh and Zuko. "These two men are firebenders! And that girl is helping them. She's a traitor!"

Immediately, Zuko pushed Orora behind him, gripping one of her hands to make sure she stayed there. Uncle and nephew exchanged a look which seemed to mirror what the other was thinking.

Play dumb.

"I know they're firebenders, I saw the old man heating his tea!" Jet continued, advancing towards the trio with his hooked swords out of their sheaths. "He works in a tea shop." A nearby customer stated in a rather confused voice, but Jet wasn't having it. "He's a firebender! I'm telling you!"

The same customer stood. "Drop your swords, boy. Nice and easy." Jet ignored him, his gaze never leaving Zuko's as he began to advance towards him and Orora. "You'll have to defend yourself. Then everyone will know. Go ahead, show them what you can do." His gaze flickered to Orora who, previous fear forgotten to be replaced by a burning anger, glared back at him. "Or would you rather have your girlfriend get hurt defending you."

She felt his grip on her hand tighten to an almost painful level. "Zuko, no! He's goading you!" She whispered, even as the previous customer moved to step forward, ready to unsheathe his sword. Zuko simply glanced at her. Her heart dropped to her stomach. She knew exactly what he was about to do.

And sure enough he stepped forward and grabbed the swords the customer had been about to withdraw. "You want a show?" He growled. "I'll give you a show!'

He pulled a table in front of him with his foot and kicked it at Jet, who was quick to slice the table with his swords and jumped over it. As he landed, he swung both hook swords at the Fire Nation prince, who deflected the attack and jumped backward onto another table. Which was again sliced in half by Jet, with a mighty swing of one sword through the middle of the table.

Somehow Zuko managed to balance on one half of the table, on one foot! Jet was unrelenting as he continued his frenzied attack by cutting the legs off the table. Zuko was quick on his feet as he jumped up. As he landed, he swung both broadswords at Jet's feet, but he somersaulted away and landed in a crouching position before charging forward. Zuko swung both of his swords at Jet.

Both weapons clashed as both fighters tried to best the other, glaring at each other as they did.

"Enough!"

Orora's scream cut through the air as she used her waterbending to push the two fighters apart. She moved to stand in front of Zuko, multiple ice knives nestled between her fingers as she stared down Jet. "We are not your enemies! Stop acting like a complete lunatic!" Zuko growled behind her. "Orora, stay out of this!" Jet's grip on his swords only tightened. "I will not listen to anyone who betrays their own people to help firebenders."

He took a running start, prompting Orora to drop in her stance to defend herself, however her plan of action went out the window when Zuko pushed her to the side. So forcefully that she fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Jet threw his leg out, catching Zuko in the chest and watching as he went flying through the air, smashing through the doors of the tea shop and out into the street. As the rest of the patrons rushed out to see what would happen next, Iroh quickly helped Orora to stand up.

"Are you alright my dear?" He asked, checking her over for injuries. She gave a quick nod, before stumbling to the door of the shop, Iroh following behind.

Outside the battle continued to rage between the two teenagers.

"Please, son, you're confused! You don't know what you're doing!" Even he was getting worried that Zuko would snap and use his firebending. Orora began to pray silently to the Moon Spirit, hoping her pleas would be heard and that Zuko wouldn't get hurt or reveal his true identity. The people would surely kill Zuko and Iroh, if they knew who they really were.

"Bet you wish he'd help you out with a little fire blast right now." As Jet swung at Zuko's feet, Zuko stabbed one of his broadswords through the hilt of his sword, pinning it to the ground. Jet looked annoyed at loosing his weapon, before focusing back on Zuko. "You're the one who needs help." Zuko responded. Leaving the sword embedded in the floor, they shifted to combating with a single sword each. Jet turned in a circle, trying to swipe at Zuko once again, but Zuko quickly advanced and swung his sword at Jet.

The Freedom Fighter quickly bent backward to avoid the blade, though it did manage to cut the straw sticking out of his mouth in half. Regaining his balance, Jet jumped backward onto the edge of a well. "You see that‌?!" He called out to the gathered crowd. "The Fire Nation is trying to silence me. It'll never happen." He attacked once more, hooking his sword to the top of the well and sending a flying kick towards Zuko.

Zuko growled as he dodged the kick and swung his sword at Jet once again. He moved to the side, and suddenly they were back-to-back, trying to land a hit, but neither could get past the other's defense.

Just then two newcomers entered the crowd. And from their uniforms, they looked to be of an official status. "Drop your weapons." One of them commanded. The two fighters stepped away and faced each other. Though Zuko lowered his sword, Jet pointed his weapon at Zuko, Iroh and Orora.

"Arrest them! They're firebenders!" Iroh stepped forward, throwing his arms out. "This poor boy is confused. We're just simple refugees." Pao, wanting to defend his employees joined in as he pointed to Jet. "This young man wrecked my tea shop, and assaulted my employees!" The customer from whom Zuko had borrowed the swords stepped forward. "It's true, sir. We saw the whole thing. This crazy kid attacked the finest tea maker in the city." Iroh blushed at the compliment. "Oh, ho, ho. That's very sweet."

Knowing it would be like adding wood to the fire, Orora stepped forward. "And he attacked me and threatened to hurt my Master and his nephew." She walked towards the two men, hand exposed to the wrist where he had grabbed her earlier. Sure enough the bruise from his grip was already beginning to change the color of her skin. The sight of it had Zuko nearly swinging his sword once again, but Iroh placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

It would seem the two had heard enough. As Jet continued his tirade of firebenders and Fire Nation, he was escorted to a cart where he was put in the metal cell and taken away.

Orora watched him go, unaware of the crowd as it dispersed around them.

"Orora?" At Iroh's voice, she turned around, still a little spooked with what had just happened. Or rather what could've happened. "Why don't you and Li go home. I'll help Pao clean up and meet you there."

As if she had no control over her actions, Orora took off her apron and handed it to Iroh, who gave her a sympathetic smile. "Do see that my nephew wasn't too hurt from the kick, my dear." The concern was evident in his gaze, as was the guilt in her own as she glanced at Zuko who was returning the sword to it's rightful owner.

Giving him a small nod, she waited for Zuko to walk past her, before following after him towards their shared home.

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